Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As the morning came the people in the Hidden Village of Konoha started their daily routines as usual. Some were getting ready for their early missions, kissing their loved ones before taking off, some were practicing their Vigorous Springtime Of Youth by running 30,000 laps around the village by using only three fingers from both hands, some were nursing the mother of hangovers with a plethora of dango...

..and some were being rudely interrupted by ANBU while enjoying their sinfully soothing morning tea while wearing nothing else than their boxer briefs before setting off to deal with a hoard of pre-adolescent troublemakers who knew twenty ways to kill an opponent by using their pen starting with their left index finger but still didn't have the damnest clue on how to spell 'Bunshin No Jutsu'.

One more snort from the ANBU on the right and he'd experience the 'Pen Penalty N.o 21'.

They told him to wait before Shizune would call for him. Nursing his already chilled tea he sat down on the small couch in the corridor and gave a long, silent sigh. Kami knew what Godaime had in store for him when it was only six thirty a.m. With any luck she'd be either drunk as skunk, sinking in the aftermath of being drunk as skunk and being overly emotional, again, or having one hell of a hangover and, being the inventive sadist she then was, inclined to inflict collateral damage on one of her favorite desk chuunins. Which just happened to be him. Again.

Being in close work relations with the Hokages had its downsides apparently.

"Maa, Iruka-sensei? They called you out here as well? What did you do, set Ebisu on fire...again?"

Hangover it was then.

"Morning, Kakashi-san," Iruka said with much less smiling than the copy-nin was used to. The silver-haired ninja cocked his head to the side to give a better look at the slightly rumpled-looking sensei. Iruka looked well-rested, granted, and had his hair up as usual, granted, and was glaring at his seemingly very cold tea at the moment-

Ah.

"May I wonder what happened to the 'good' part in your morning, sensei?" Not that anybody ever needed to know, Kakashi had already second thoughts about asking the now even more so annoyed teacher the said question, which now hung heavily above them. Outsiders may not have noticed anything going on with the seemingly innocent question, but these two knew better. Ever since Naruto had left to train with Jiraya-sama, the two men had become well acquainted despite their rather...colorful encounters. Violent and volatile would hit closer, though. They had settled their arguments on the chuunin exams ages ago but that didn't lessen their enthusiasm to grate on each others nerves. It actually became the main ingredient in their communication. It amused Kakashi to no end to discover what kind of man Iruka was under all the hyping his blond student made sure to give every time anyone mentioned the brown-haired chuunin. The said chuunin, who was merrily crackling his china in his tightening grip as we speak, had turned out to be a rather compatible opponent when it came to tongue lashing and impressively inventive when it came down to makeshift weapons. After getting pinned to the wall with exactly twenty pens in exactly twenty seconds from exactly twenty feet counted from the teacher's desk (Pen Penalty N.o 43), Kakashi knew he had found the nerve he had been looking for.

And he did his best to hit that nerve.

"ANBU," came the growled response as the faint sound of wailing porcelain filled in the blanks.

"..Ah. Well, you do know there's a water boiler down the corridor, don't you? Unless this is some new blend you're trying now?"

All the time.

The dark look on the tea-deprived teacher's face could have made even Zabuza consider turning into philanthropist, but then again Iruka knew the man next to him lacked on all fields of normal social communication, or being just plain ignorant when the bastard chose to. Nothing a decent kick to the head couldn't remedy.

"..No, Kakashi-san, I didn't, and it's not." It wasn't Iruka's intention to accuse the other man for his shitty morning, but if the one-eyed nuisance offered his ass to be handed back to him, he wasn't against the fun. He still had his own ass hurting from their previous session. Now he was presented with two options, though. He could either go and get his fix of morning tea before turning berserk at Tsunade-sama, who apparently took her sweet time before calling them in, or indeed turn berserk, not against their Hokage but the sorry-for-being-genius-asshole who was acting far too chipper for his liking. Way too chipper in fact. Too chipper for Kakashi at now six fifty-five in the morning-

...Oh.

Kakashi didn't like what he saw on the other man's face. That look was a prelude for something very uncomfortable for him, and he knew that the teacher knew that he had a reason to fear that look now. That look was the bane of every student, subordinate, colleague and enemy nin ever getting a glimpse of it.

The look of 'I just realized you're missing something'.

He really should have slammed his fist in the ANBU's face as his first thought had been for that morning.

"They took your porn, didn't they?" Iruka couldn't help the wide grin spreading on his face. Despite his peevish mood over the cold cup of poor black blend, the indignant blush on the uncovered cheek made his morning. Elite jounin his chuunin ass, everybody knew how to get the lazy man to move even an inch against his will in the morning. After Iruka had snuck into the man's house a couple of months ago and locked the prized book collection into a rather plain coffin with no seams, no lock, no key and with a good jutsu on it and then had left a note that it was good to exercise Kakashi's deduction abilities once in a while, all the shinobis present in the village at that moment had the privilege to witness a phenomenon later labeled as 'Lightningwave'. Some of the buildings still had scorch marks on their walls on the spots where the rather homicidal jounin had set his foot on his mission to find and kill the fucker who had just made his merry way into copy-nin's own personal bingo book. By the time he had finally found the culprit he had already calmed down much to Iruka's relief, but that didn't last long after they found out just how good ammo against Kakashi the sneaky sensei had actually provided for the whole village. Which others were more than happy to exploit whenever the situation called for it. Apparently this was one of those. Again.

"They'll be dead by noon. I'll get you some tea, sensei."

"Kakashi-san, Iruka-san, Tsunade-sama would like to see you now," Shizune said as she peeked behind the big doors to see what she feared was chaos and havoc. She had heard about these two men from other shinobis during the time she gathered their information for Tsunade in order to give the new Hokage all the intel needed on her shinobi forces when she started. As the time went by, the escapades where the names of these two were present hit frequently her radar and for the first time in years when working with Tsunade she really doubted the sanity of her friend and leader. They would soon have two corpses in their hands if Tsunade really was having her way with these shinobis.

What she actually saw made her doubt her doubts, though. The said men, both not so happily called from their homes, were sitting side by side on the couch and chatting in a manner that suspiciously sounded...friendly. And that wasn't the only thing that caught her attention. Surprisingly enough Iruka had a new simmering tea cup in his hands as Kakashi flipped nonchalantly the pages of something that looked almost like a...nude calendar? The men glanced up from their conversation and stood up, Iruka sipping down the last drops of his drink and Kakashi handing the small calendar back to the teacher. Shizune felt her jaw drop.

"You'll thank me later, Shizune-san," Iruka grinned as the men walked past the stunned woman into their Hokage's office. After the Icha Icha Confined! incident it became a habit of his to carry around the seen small calendar to soothe the older shinobi, especially in cases when it wasn't Iruka who had picked on the man's porn. He liked his head enough to keep it intact. Not that he ever had the calendar when working in school, he had standards. Plus Kakashi knew where he kept it in case of emergencies such as the current one they had in their hands. Again.

The men stepped to their Hokage's table and shared a rather puzzled, brief glance.

Tsunade was...smiling.

Hell, she was radiating. "Good morning to you two. Iruka-sensei. Brat."

"Morning, Hokage-sama," Iruka smiled as Kakashi chose to rely on a small grunt. A grunt that turned into a low growl as the man spotted that damned little coffin next to Tsunade's desk. As if sensing what Kakashi was thinking, Iruka stepped a little bit more away from the disgruntled man. There was no way in hell he would step between an Icha Icha deprived pervert and the keeper of the man's collection, Hokage or not. She had ANBU for that kind of heroism. Iruka decided to have a word with Tsunade after their meeting, since as fun as it was to observe the silver-haired man lose it every time someone even pointed a box towards his books, they might soon have a mental breakdown in their hands if she didn't stop messing with the man's porn. He wasn't too keen to witness how many lightning bolts Hokage's building could take.

"I'd like to see you try that, brat," their leader said as she glared expectantly at the copy-nin over her desk, snapping both of the men in front of her back to attention. "Moreover, I have a mission for you two." The confused silence that followed her announcement was not expected, though.

"...Us, Hokage-sama? Wouldn't it be wiser to have another jounin with Kakashi-san? Our skill levels are too different to benefit anyone, plus I still need to go to work today since..I..um.." The practiced complaint died in Iruka's throat as they watched the grin on Tsunade's face grow with each passing syllable. This occurrence was new for both of them and they didn't know what to make of it. By now Kakashi would have agreed with the tan teacher, their missions have always been way too different to even compare plus their skills were indeed nowhere near par. Not that they haven't worked on that factor the last months-

Wait.

Suddenly the situation made sense for both of them, and as they looked at each other they knew the other had got the same thought now running loose in their minds.

Busted.

"I see you both caught on what I mean. Good. Saves me the trouble then," Tsunade chuckled as she tossed a scroll for both men and took a better seat in her chair. "This mission is very different from the average rating. Not that I doubt either of you to accomplish it well."

"What does the mission has to do with us, Hokage-sama?" Iruka had to ask before opening the scroll, not that Kakashi had any qualms with that since the nosy man seemed to have read through the first three paragraphs already.

"Research." The amber eyes glinted with delight.

"More like guinea pigs if you ask me..." Kakashi muttered behind the scroll. Now Iruka had to find out what he was getting into. Tsunade observed with growing amusement as her two favorite subordinates read their assignment, shook their heads and read it again before exchanging more or less disbelieving looks, with more or less blushing cheeks.

"..You..you want us to move in together?" Iruka couldn't believe this. Surely the Hokage knew about their encounters? They'd kill each other within the first day!

"If that's the only concern then I'm more than pleased with your reaction, Iruka-kun," their leader purred with a grin. The following combustion of the tan cheeks reached new records in Kakashi's scale. Plum seemed to suit the teacher's features quite well apparently.

"Why us?" Kakashi didn't find it hard to live under the same roof like Iruka did, but concerning the rest of their assignment...well, that was a whole different matter.

"You figured it out yourselves already, brat." Godaime took a sip of her drink. "I've been given information on you two seen together on the training grounds two times a week, sometimes even four times a week if given a chance. This has continued for some time, am I correct?" The men nodded their confirmation. "And you reduce the use of your chakra when you spar, correct?" Again a slightly more wary nod. "Well there you have it. Only this time you would be training everyday for a month and interacting between yourselves only, as I would be the one controlling the levels of your chakra reserves. As it's written on your scrolls, the whole point for this mission is research. I bumped into interesting information about developing different fighting skills when shinobi trains without their chakra. Since you two have already started with it I figured it would be beneficial for the whole village's training program if this small mission would actually produce any significant results." At that point she waved at Kakashi who was already pondering what she was missing. "I know about Gai and Lee and believe me, those two are being studied as well, but they have a different starting point since they've been without certain skills their whole shinobi careers as you two on the other hand are both fully capable shinobi who also represent different ranks. In that case even if brat would get bored to death this method might be highly valuable to Iruka-kun."

She never thought it possible to get a synchronized eye-roll from these two.

"In any case, the instructions for your tasks are in the scrolls, you'll get escorted to the house by ANBU and I'll visit you every three days to check on your scores and manipulate your chakras. Any questions?" As she reclined in her seat, Tsunade gave a brief look at both of them. They would both benefit her research, especially Iruka since the man has really taken far too few missions in Sandaime's time, and even though Kakashi was already superior both in physiology and stamina, the Godaime had a feeling the smart sensei had found ways of getting on the same level with the village's genius. There was simply no other explanation for the two men to train so eagerly every week, especially for Kakashi who already had Gai of all people to keep him busy outside missions.

"When do we leave, Tsunade-sama?" Iruka had a sinking feeling he would be indebted to Shikamaru until his early grave. That boy would grow to hate him.

"The moment you get your bags packed and shifts worked out, sensei," came the happy response.

Apparently Shikamaru wouldn't be the only lucky one.

"So."

"So."

"That does look like a nice house."

"As in 'Nobody hears your screams', eh?"[1]

"Kakashi-san!"

"Maa, joking, joking. But you've got to admit, it's her we're talking about."

"True, but I hardly think Tsunade-sama would sabotage her own research, Kakashi-san."

The flat look in the lone eye was more than enough for an argument.

Even the ANBU next to them seemed to agree with the older man.

Iruka could feel his ears heat up when facing the tough audience for his hypothesis. "...Much at least?" Oh who was he kidding, that lady would have used them as gambling chips long time ago had it been legal.

The ANBU gave a thorough check to the house before nodding their goodbyes at Kakashi and vanishing out of sight. As they entered the house, Iruka wondered for a brief moment if the older shinobi would teach him that trick. He would be one step closer then at driving his class up the walls. Not to mention the troublemakers in the mission room. Speaking of which...

"It seems we have to share the bedroom, sensei."

Iruka glanced up at the rather blunt statement when taking off his shoes. He took both his own bag and the bag they got from Tsunade with him and stepped further down the corridor where he heard the other man hustle in one of the rooms. There were only three doors in the corridor and in the end a rather large open space kitchen with necessary items for cooking. Iruka gave the kitchen a brief look before stepping in to the room closest to the kitchen and he saw Kakashi making his bed already in one corner of the said bedroom. He noticed the futon presumably meant for him still rolled on the other side of Kakashi's, with some linen folded next to it. With a small huff, the teacher let his bags hit the floor with small thumps before starting to make his own bed on the opposite side of Kakashi's spot.

The sudden tense silence was unnerving for both of them. When finished, Kakashi plopped down on his bed and observed as Iruka did his best to concentrate on folding his sheets in immaculate manner rather than sharing any thoughts on the fact that they, the infamous pair of walking destruction, were going to share every aspect of their living for one month. Kakashi felt he had to take the teacher's mind elsewhere, that pillow was a mere blink away from getting incinerated under the dark glare set upon it.

"I mean really, we've both been on missions where one needs to sleep close to other teammates. It isn't that bad, right? At least she gave us separate beds this time." At that, Iruka's ears perked to give their attention to the man sitting on his mattress.

"What do you mean 'this time'?"

"Asuma and way too much body hair. Don't ask."

With that sentence and the howling laughter following it the uneasy tension that had secretly built up between them vanished with no trace.

After Iruka had finished making his bed and unpacking his bag, not to mention rolling his eyes at Kakashi's thin travel-sized Icha Ichas with folded centerfold pictures of each position described in the texts (the paperback versions were ridiculous enough), the men decided to explore their new accommodation for the coming month before starting with the official part of their unusual mission.

The two doors next to their bedroom were the toilet and the bathroom. It had two shower stalls with thin stained glass wall between them, for which Kakashi was grateful to Tsunade. The porn tragedies aside, she was also a Hokage who respected hes shinobis' quirks and secrets and did her best to make them enjoy their job. Kakashi made a mental note to thank her for that when he'd see her again. While the older ninja mused on the small gestures from their leader, Iruka had already spotted a cabinet holding their towels, bathrobes and bathing supplies, not to mention a rather sizable first-aid kit accompanied with a jar full of painkillers with Iruka's name on it and a thin shower mask with Kakashi's initials. She knew her shinobis, alright.

Their next investigations left the kitchen cupboards raided of coffee and tea that were put on the counter right next to the coffee maker and water boiler which were also promptly put to use the second they found the wall socket for them. From the kitchen was an entry to the small garden behind the house with a high fence wall surrounding the area as well the whole house, creating a modest gate at the front. The men noted that nobody had the chance to see into the house from the street-level.

Nor to the outside from the house.

"That's rather..efficient." Iruka had to admit, he was curious to find out whom this house had belonged to before them or was it really built for their mission. "Not that it would stop anyone entering here. At least anyone smart enough to just jump over it." The teacher took a sip of his tea and turned to look at the pensive jounin next to him. It seemed the man had spotted something.

"You have a point there, sensei. Unless.." Kakashi fingered his coffee mug in deep thoughts as he strolled across the lawn to get a closer look on what he suspected was a seal on the fence. He knew he had it nailed the moment he spotted the faint trace of chakra on it. That meant they had sealed themselves in the house the moment the ANBU had closed the gate behind them.

No one would hear their screams, indeed.

"It feels like Tsunade-sama's chakra. I wonder how it would react to ours," Iruka muttered suddenly behind his shoulder. The man had somehow managed to sneak up on him while he pondered on their options, and Kakashi felt his neck prickle on the sudden intrusion of his personal space but decided to concentrate on the man's words instead. He touched the fence with his fingers and felt the chakra hum around them.

"It feels like it's accepting mine, so it wouldn't be a problem for us to leave here if the situation called for it. She really is something, that woman," Kakashi chuckled and gave a wink over his shoulder, getting a similar chuckle as the response.

"Well she wouldn't be our Hokage if she wasn't, Kakashi-san," Iruka replied as he turned to walk back to the house. They still had the most important room of the house unexplored, and frankly he was getting anxious to start their task. He felt the other man follow him when he stepped back on to the small terrace with two sliding doors leading to the space which was the whole purpose of their mission. He pulled the doors open and gave a once-over on the sight greeting them as they stood on the threshold. The training space was ascetic and consisted of the tatami matted floor and the walls surrounding them, one of them having two pairs of sliding doors. Iruka pulled the doors open and they found both their bedroom and bathroom behind them. Not only was she considerate, she was also practical. Iruka turned to give a wide grin at his current mission partner, who seemed to catch on his next thought.

"Well, should we start the mission then, Kakashi-san?"

Iruka opened the bag Tsunade had given to them before sending them out of her office and pulled out a notebook containing their instructions for their chakra use. While the teacher sat to read, Kakashi took time to examine the vials and syringes held in a small box found from the bag. He took it to the counter next to the fridge and as he came back Iruka was already waiting him with two pieces of paper in his hands.

"You may want to read the text as well before we do the seals, just to check if I had it right," Iruka said as he offered the book to Kakashi, who read it through while the chuunin held the papers in his hand. The copy-nin nodded and tossed the book aside, then he took one of the papers and gave it a brief scan with his Sharingan.

"You had it right, sensei. These do resemble the ones we make when we spar. How she ever found them out is beyond me, but at least it's easier for us to do them and also to trust that they work. Do you want to do me first?" The mischievous grin on the tan face wasn't the answer he was after, though.

"Are you sure you don't want to cuddle first and see where that leads?" Iruka knew he was being a prick here, really, but a good shinobi never disregarded an opening when they saw it and they were acting a bit too professional for his taste at that moment. Plus the look in that lone eye was worth it. Although the moment the gray eye turned from sheer shock to shocking leer he knew he may just pay for his smart mouth.

"Maa, I didn't take you for a cuddling type," the older man all but purred as he took a couple steps towards the teacher who was now growing slightly nervous on the sudden twist of events. "But I'm not entirely against the new lessons you could teach me if you..insist, sensei." And there was the plum tone again. He was getting good at making the tan man blush. Iruka stuttered and gave him the fiercest glare one can muster when glowing like a red beacon. Then he all but slammed the needed hand seals together, crushed the paper in between his hands to imprint the needed sign on it and lastly whammed the seal against the surprised jounin's chest, feeling it embed itself into the man's system under his hand. Then he snatched the second paper the other was still holding and repeated the process on himself, save for the whamming part. After the seals felt being activated they examined the glowing spots in their chests for a while before they settled on faint gray blue hue.

Kakashi raised a wondering eyebrow as the glow faded away and they felt the heaviness of their bodies catch their consciousness without their chakra. "That little, huh. This'll be interesting, neh?"

Iruka gave a pensive nod. He'd never tried fighting the other man with this little amount of chakra, truth to be told the experience was new for them both. Did Tsunade really think they were that good opponents for each other? He didn't doubt that he wouldn't manage to give Kakashi some hard time, he had already surprised the man a few times during their past training sessions, but to actually offer some good workout to a man who was above him on almost every level there was concerning battle situations, that was a whole new matter he didn't feel like achieving easily.

"Don't look so insecure. I wouldn't have spent my time with you if I didn't enjoy our sessions, you know. After all, I have Gai to vent my excessive energy on." The low voice snapped Iruka out of his musings and he was greeted with a smiling lone eye. He let a sheepish smile creep on his face and felt an urge to scratch the scar on his nose. He'd been caught. Kakashi hummed and turned to pick up his sparring gear, giving the teacher time to compose himself again. Iruka was grateful for the small gesture. A total dickhead and wisecrack aside, Hatake knew when to say the right things - and when to keep that loud mouth to himself.

They changed their clothes in the bedroom in comfortable silence, both keeping their eyes to themselves. Iruka knew it wouldn't do to sneak any peeks at the older nin's face, and frankly he didn't give a flying fuck what the other man looked like. It wasn't any of his business if the other had over-sized plushy lips or buck teeth under that black mask, as one particular blond mayhem described once with so great enthusiasm and level of concentration that the chuunin had to wonder where that had been all those years when he had the boy in his class. He looked at the shadows they created against the wooden wall, his own with a pointy bush on top of his head and the jounin's with unruly mess of hair shaking as the man in question pulled up his sweatpants. Indeed. Just a man. Would he be able to actually beat the man Kakashi would be without his chakra, moreover his Sharingan?

"Are you doing okay there, Iruka-sensei?"

Iruka blinked and realized that he'd been staring the older man's shadow for a good while. He could feel the heat rise to his cheeks as he rapidly pulled up his sweats and tied them on his waist before risking a glance at the presumably smirking, annoying jounin's face. He wasn't disappointed.

"I can see the gears turning quite a bit in that head of yours. Saw something interesting to cause that?" Kakashi had his eyebrow raised and Iruka could see the wide, lop-sided smirk stretch the fabric of the mask.

"Oh take a hike you bastard, your ego is the last thing to need any more boosting."

"How cruel, Iruka-sensei. What makes you think I wouldn't be suffering from a childhood trauma resulting with weak self-esteem?" Iruka could hear the amusement dripping on each word from that irritating mouth. Never before meeting Hatake had he wished so much to find a scroll with a muting jutsu in it. Then again, it wouldn't be the same without that snippy commenting grating on his nerves all the time. He gave a long sigh and rolled his eyes.

"The moment you have low self-esteem is when Orochimaru acquires people skills and Ino decides that she'd look good bald. Come on, we have only one month. Might as well really use it like Hokage-sama meant it," the teacher snapped and walked briskly back to the training room as Kakashi made his contribution by nodding lazily and dragging his feet for extra effort as he meandered behind the sizzling sensei. The jounin quirked an eyebrow at the other's direction, pondering idly on what was up with the chuunin's system, as for all he was sensing it looked like the ANBU hade taken a piss in the man's tea beside just rudely interrupting his morning. From the corner of his eye, Kakashi glanced at the dark-skinned man wearing his familiar black sweats and black tank top, the fabric pulling over taut muscles as Iruka lifted his hands to tie his hair up more properly, the teacher seemingly lost in thoughts. How on earth they still let the tan man be around children with that foul mouth and fiery temper of his, the Sharingan user found himself wondering at times.

Nevertheless, Kakashi was actually quite happy with the sparring routine the two of them had established over the couple of months before this silly research mission. Iruka never held back, which meant that Kakashi wasn't allowed to take it all easy either. That and the man in question was indeed a very, very capable chuunin, as far as the last match counted. The usually mellow-mannered sensei could really deliver some mean kicks, not to mention performing the perfect timing in everything. A small chuckle at the mental image of Iruka training with alarm clocks around him escaped Kakashi's masked lips before he could prevent it, gaining the attention of the target of his musings from the stretches the younger man was performing after he'd set the found alarm in twenty minutes.

The teacher raised a wondering eyebrow at his chuckling counterpart, as if measuring if the jounin had lost it for real this time and he should run for it. Then he stood warily back up and looked over at the older man. "What?" To his mild surprise, the jounin's eyes turned into happy crescents and he chuckled some more. Well, that was new.

"Just wondering which road of life to pick this time so that I could give you back what you gave to me the last time we matched, sensei," Kakashi answered with a far too pleased voice to the chuunin's liking.

Iruka was already on the edge considering he'd be spending a month with a man he got along with usually for only five minutes before unleashing things not suitable for minors nor adults, and secondly he was away from the academy and kami knew what destruction awaited him there when he got back. Unless he got beaten to a bloody pulp by Kakashi before that. Either way, he still wasn't all happy with the current arrangements. "Are you done then?" He asked and gave the happy jounin a once-over with his dark, now calculating eyes.

It never ceased to amaze Kakashi how those eyes could turn their expressions 180 degrees in mere seconds. Kakashi nodded, wondering what the tricky teacher was planning.

As a way of answering, Iruka flashed him a bright, sharp smile. "Well good."

The next thing Kakashi knew was that the second the warm breath of the other man ghosted against his ear his hands reacted on reflex, blocking the first kick aimed for his torso. He stepped a few feet back and dodged down from the second kick, going for Iruka's other leg with his own low spin kick. The teacher regained his momentum on time and hopped up away from the imposing limb, only to receive a full blow on his back that sent him flying in the air and landing on his bare feet some feet away from his opponent. He spun around just in time to block the second attack from the pale man as the older shinobi aimed for his chest for taking the air out of his lungs. Iruka grabbed the strong arms and twisted them crossing over each other, holding the pulling and resisting arms in his infamous iron grip known by every student (and fellow shinobi on very, very trying days) that were unfortunate enough to get acquainted with it. The men observed each other over their struggling hands, two dark brown eyes against one cold gray.

The small, passing glint in the narrowed gray eye was all the warning Iruka got.

Kakashi pulled a bit back, not paying any attention on his awkward position, and gave a nasty kick to Iruka's side. Then to his other side. Iruka growled low in his throat, knowing exactly where things would lead if he'd let go of the now even more struggling pale arms. Iruka's own legs tried to block the kicks but some of them made still contact with his already bruising skin since he didn't have the same range as Kakashi did as he had to keep his balance point low in order to keep his hold on the other man. Kakashi continued his merciless kicks at the teacher's sides, his narrow eye following constantly the small winces twisting the tanned face. He knew Iruka was stubborn as hell sometimes and would hold his ground even if it was killing him (quite literally also, if the rumors he heard about Mizuki's attack on Naruto years back were anything to go by). To his surprise though he suddenly felt being pulled forward with a strength he'd only seen glimpses occasionally and with his other leg still in the air for the kick he lost his balance and couldn't prevent falling for the pull. The second his mind caught with Iruka's plot the teacher had already twisted their arms apart on their sides and was aiming a cruel knee at Kakashi's diaphragm as he pulled the older man down to meet it. He felt the air leave him as the contact was made, not once but twice, before Iruka let go of his arms and pushed him up with his own hands before marking the pale body with a series of accurate punches. The last blow sent Kakashi sliding down on the floor and he was heaving for breath as his body stilled on the woven mats. Iruka stood still, panting heavily and holding his sides in agony. He felt his legs tremble slightly and small dots appeared in his vision, but he knew they were far from finishing. That was only the warm-up for the arrogant jounin.

"You know, you could have considered taking some acting lessons while in ANBU," Iruka said in between his pants as amusement pulled his lips into a small grin. Honestly, jounins and their sense of drama.

As if on cue Kakashi stopped heaving and stilled for a moment. Then the silver-haired head lifted up from the floor with sheepish grin. "Didn't fool you for a second, eh?"

"With all the faked asthma acts I've witnessed over the years from my students I'd say your performance really isn't fooling anyone." At least the strict and professional side containing Iruka's pedagogical ambitions hoped that nobody's ever fallen for that. Though a small voice in the back of his mind couldn't be too sure about Naruto.

"And here I thought I'd awaken the caring sensei who'd nurse me back to my feet..." Kakashi grinned wider, not that Iruka saw the difference due to the mask, as he slowly rose back to his feet, the cold gray eye glinting with excitement and playfulness many would never witness. "You know, kissing it all better and so forth.."

Iruka snorted with a wry smirk forming on his face. "In your dreams, pervert." Then he winced as the throbbing pain once subsided came back with reinforcements. It seems his ribs had taken a decent shock as well. Kakashi looked at him with concern from his side of the training room.

"Did I go too far with the kicks?" The jounin asked with small amount of worry in his voice. It wouldn't do to hurt Iruka too much when it was only for warming up, apparently they still needed to work on their strength balance for the sensei to be able to enjoy these sessions fully as well.

"No, you were just very accurate with them. Just give a moment." Iruka took a slow breath in and held it for a few seconds before exhaling. "Alright, nothing feels to be broken so I think I'll just get few dark bruises from it." He smiled assuredly at the older man who was still observing him like a worried pup. Too bad for him.

He knew that small frown and what it meant. Iruka plunged himself at Kakashi and the silver-haired shinobi blocked five punches, three spin kicks and threw a somersault over the teacher's body as Iruka was going for a low kick. As Iruka spun back to his feet Kakashi was already delivering his own assaults, making the sensei take steps back as his pace increased for a moment, his footwork picking up a notch and the accuracy of the kicks and punches sharpening all the while. To his pleased note it seemed that his opponent had already anticipated the changes and was doing his best to keep up, blocking fervently and even trying to deliver his own attacks. As he made a sharp jab at Iruka's shoulder the teacher dodged while bending backwards, then deliberately dropping on the floor on his hands and swinging his both legs up to meet Kakashi's chest, sending the man staggering back from the impact. Iruka lifted himself rapidly from the floor, hopped up and delivered an upper-cut kick on Kakashi's shoulder, making the man fall on his one knee from the power behind the kick. Before Iruka had landed back on his feet, though, he felt a strong grip grabbing his other ankle and the next thing he saw was the wall advancing rapidly towards his flying body. He spun in the air and met the wall with his feet, feeling his muscles scream in agony as he bent his knees and tried to hold up his stance in order to bounce back at Kakashi, who seemed a little impressed as he watched Iruka change his flying motion into offensive strike as the tanned body launched itself back from the wall and was next to him in an instant.

The jounin stepped to the side for dodging the oncoming assault but hadn't taken into consideration how well teachers have learned to improvise while working with their students. Against Kakashi's beliefs that he was going for a mere strong punch, Iruka wrapped his arm around the man's chest, that way stopping his upper body's movement while his legs still continued their way past them before he twisted his lower body upwards, taking Kakashi with him in his still ongoing momentum and pulling the man's upper body backwards, right where he wanted him. Iruka's legs drew an almost full circle in the air before making contact with Kakashi's both shoulders and wrapping themselves around his neck. Then Iruka yanked his legs back while letting go of the others body, (he was only fighting with the man, not killing him. Yet at least.) and finishing the motion as his feet slammed on the floor with his opponent's head between them. His hands grabbed hold on Kakashi's feet and kept them in place against floor, bending the pale body in quite an impressive arc. They stilled their fight for a moment, both trying to grasp what the hell just happened.

"...Maa, I never guessed you'd be so flexible, sensei," Kakashi commented while he made a mental note to check on academy's curriculum to see what was it that they taught to kids nowadays as the basic acrobatics.

Not to mention the mandatory stretches assigned for their teachers.

"First time for everything, I guess," Iruka panted while the small euphoria from their activities fuzzed his head. He had actually nailed Kakashi. The Kakashi. The Hatake Kakashi-

"Fine, fine, yes you had me there, could we proceed before it'll all get stuck into your head that you've nailed me for once?" Was it him or did the copy-nin actually sound like he was sulking? Iruka blinked as what the man had said registered in his mind. How the hell did he -

"I can feel that giddy grin of yours against my thigh."

"...Oh. Sorry." Iruka quickly checked if he had accidentally drooled on the other man's dark blue sweatpants while spacing out for a second. That would have been embarrassing. The alarm broke the silence with its' beeping, giving the clear signal to the men to stop for a small rest before taking part to the second phase in their research.

"Really now, Iruka-sensei, if your students could see you now-"

"Just put that damn thing in already and get on with it, asshole."

"I thought you'd be prepared for this, considering it's part of your job description-"

"My job description doesn't include an apparent sadist who indulges himself with fellow man's agony and all but drags this out as it could be done in mere five minut- AGH! FUCK! You PRICK! THAT HURT!"

"Maa, maa, putting up some tolerance-"

"SHUT UP!"

"..."

"Not so fun to be on the receiving end, eh, Kakashi-san?"

"..."

They sat on the small terrace, both immersing in their dinner that they had cooked together as thoughtful silence reigned in the impromptu household of the two shinobi. The first samples for their research being put into the fridge for Tsunade's visit, they were both slowly realizing what it was they had indeed agreed to. Iruka gave a brief glance at his bandaged thigh and then at Kakashi's and before he knew it a small laughter escaped his lips when he spotted the grumpy frown on the other man's masked face. The glare he received didn't do anything to lessen his spontaneous hysterics and to the older man's absolute mortification, the teacher fell down on the floor with gales of laughter taking over his body, his dinner forgotten. Known for his reputation as a patient professional, the man of thousand jutsus decided to wait for the tan man to gather his wits enough to explain himself before ramming a hefty raikiri up in that trembling ass. The minutes passed and the hysterics died, leaving a panting Iruka wiping the tears from his eyes so that he could see his now cooled dinner in order to continue eating. He gave a few awkward coughs as he sat back up, not daring to cast any looks at the ominous aura gathering just three feet next to him.

"Care to share what amused you so much to make you lose it in front of your superior, Iruka-sensei?"

Scratch being cooled, his dinner was pure ice now.

"Sorry, Kakashi-san, I'm just very tired due to our day and it's only afternoon." Oh well, he didn't even try to hold his poker face here. "Besides, you have to admit we do look hilarious with these odd healing bandages around our thighs and wearing these ridiculous half-trousers and jackets they gave us for the sample taking", Iruka chuckled as he motioned at the bright green bandages around their legs and then their gray pants, them being made of thermal fabric in order to keep the muscles warm while taking the samples and consisting of boxer-style upper part with two detachable trouser legs, the other being taken off of the leg where the blood sample was taken from. The jackets they both wore were made of the same fabric with sleeves designed for similar purposes as the trouser legs.

The gray eye inspected the grinning teacher with unreadable intentions and for a moment Iruka thought that he had indeed crossed some invisible line between their amiable squabbling. The low grunt forming into a chuckle proved him to be wrong with his worries as the uncovered eyes turned into amused crescents. However, that chuckle had a dark tinge in it.

"I suggest you lay off your dinner for now before our second match, sensei."

"Why so?"

"You'll throw up."[2]

Chapter Text

As the morning rays dyed the sky with dim blue hue, the inhabitants in the Hidden Village of Konoha stirred awake and began their daily lives, some making their rather slow way back home after a night with way too dizzy memories involving scandalous ways to use genjutsu, some practicing their Blossoming Springtime Of Youth by waltzing through the streets on roller skates while blindfolded, some giving a suffering groan at the beeping of the alarm clock because yesterday was just too troublesome experience to be repeated in any lifetime...

...and some were happily knocked out and fast asleep like the two frazzled figures of the extraordinary household in a seemingly harmless-looking light gray house behind an impressive fence wall right next to the bustling morning traffic.

Until the insistent ray of light hit the dark brown eyes, that is.

Iruka's eyes opened up in order to cast a narrow glare at the small innocent line of light cutting through their otherwise delightfully dark bedroom from between the sliding doors, creating a strong contrast of light and shadow against the floor, wall and ceiling it crossed on its jolly way. The exhausted sensei gave a sleepy sniff, turned on his other side and closed his eyes, determined to sleep all the way to next week, obligations be damned. The sudden throbbing wave of pain from his ribs, shins, shoulders, hipbones, temples and even jaw nerves had other ideas, though.

His body was complaining.

With an attitude.

The now very irritated teacher turned slowly back on his back in hopes for the pain getting the hint and permitting him to lull himself back to the sweet, sweet dream where his students were practicing knots on chakra ropes with the motivation of actually learning them instead of getting their tiny heads filled up with plans on how to tie up their sensei hanging upside-down from the closest ceiling beam. Then again, Iruka wasn't known to be a good teacher for nothing, and applying theory into practice was what he did best.

The glaring tiny faces hanging above him had made the rest of his week that day.

The violent jab of pain shooting throughout his spine shook the tan man out of his reveries and a suffering hiss escaped between his clenched teeth. If his back was ever before trying to kill him, he had no doubts it wouldn't succeed in its attempts this time. He could feel the tendons of his spine twisting, the once healed vertebrae grinding against each other and being just plain mean when he bent his back on his mattress in different directions in order to either find a pleasing position which wouldn't hurt like twenty giant shurikens cutting into his body, or just promptly dislocating his spine from several points which was also an efficient way to reach the desired unconsciousness. Not healthy nor wise on any scale, but being in excruciating pain did wonders to one's priorities. He turned his head to the side and the dark eyes set their focus on the room's other resident who was sleeping ten feet away from his bed. A tuft of silver hair peeked beneath the thick dark blue comforter and silent breathing could be heard from the owner of the seen tuft if one listened carefully enough. Amidst his agony, Iruka had a fleeting wonder on how the ex-ANBU could sleep so soundly right next to another shinobi. Then again, that breathing pattern was a bit too leveled and even. Iruka felt his brewing bad mood rocket up into new heights as his dark eyes narrowed into thin slits.

The genius asshole was wide awake.

Swell.

Iruka growled and heaved himself up on his futon, grunting and hissing all his merry way as every single muscle, nerve, tendon and even body hair flared up the second time with their own opinions against the current physical exercise. Even his internal organs had their say in the matter, hell, his spleen felt like it would cease to exist any minute now. Iruka stilled for a moment to gather his breath, sat on his rumpled bed, and tried to find reasons valid enough for him to actually be that suicidal for what he was about to do. Stretching out and putting his legs on the seemingly chill floor boards and then standing up has never before appeared so unappealing to the young teacher, not even when he had been recuperating from Mizuki's attack. As if sensing the man's troubled thoughts with the said conundrum, his physiology decided to give its final blow on his now officially second shitty morning in a row.

Shinobi or not, he still had to pee.

As to prove the point, his bladder announced that it didn't honestly care if he ever made it to the toilet or not.

Kakashi cast a slightly amused yet worried look after the teacher who vehemently hobbled out of the bedroom, the man cursing rather colorfully under his breath whenever his mouth wasn't reserved for hissing or growling. Iruka's hair was tied up quickly and sloppily but efficiently enough to keep the long strands away from his face not to annoy the man any further and his skin was covered with an impressive amount of cuts, bruises and burns. To Kakashi's pleased note, the teacher looked like shit flushed down twice.

Not that the copy-nin was in any better condition. The dull, throbbing pain which took residence in every nook it could possibly find within the pale body gave him a pretty good idea on how the other man was feeling at the moment. How Iruka managed to stand up on his own and make even a single step was beyond him. Apparently training without their usual chakra did have its bad side as well, which neither of them had realized before since they usually dispelled their seals right after the training in order to heal themselves. It wouldn't do to appear in the village with more than one bruise decorating their faces or to be incapable of bending down when needed.

People might get ideas.

Now fully awake, the older man shifted his pensive lone gray eye to observe the now more illuminated ceiling of their shared room. Yesterday was interesting, even fun on some parts. They had continued their training with three more fights for twenty minutes each, and after the first Iruka had to admit he was feeling a bit nauseous. Then again, being thrown over other's shoulder two times and then getting hit on one's stomach with an upper-cut heel before tasting two more blows on the same spot served with quite eager fists could do that to a person. Nevertheless, Kakashi was pleased with his three wins. After all, the first match and the complete surprise in the end with the teacher's amazingly pulled leg stunt did bruise his jounin's ego quite a bit. Not that he'd ever give the brown-eyed maniac any satisfaction by admitting it. He already had his hands full with-

Ow.

Ow, ow, ow.

Kakashi heard a low groan escape his masked lips underneath the comforter as some more body parts decided to gang up against him. He really would work just fine with only one kidney. On the other hand, at the end of this current assignment he actually might be in that condition if their training kept going in even more challenging direction from what it already was.

To amplify the fun, his lumbar region decided to agree with the man.

His body really seemed to hold a grudge against all the bad treatment inflicted on it in the past.

The elite shinobi hissed and bit his lip as both of his calves felt obliged to emphasize how right he was when the sudden and very painful cramps took them over. He pressed his toes desperately against the mattress, pressed and hoped for anything, any available deity out there bored enough to pay attention to one pained copy-nin, to ease the stabbing pain burning in his legs. The combo of one spin kick, three heel kicks and two blows with both his shins was really taking its toll now. As the pain started to alleviate more into tolerable dull ache the silver-haired shinobi felt his body relax, as relaxed as one could be with constant pain, and he released a small relieved sigh accompanied with a small 'thanks' directed to anyone up there. Or below, he wasn't feeling picky at that moment.

"Good morning to you too, Kakashi-san," a slightly raspy voice half-groaned on its way past him.

The gray eye focused on the dark-skinned man who was now considering the pros and cons of even trying to bend his knees and back in order to pick up his folded clothes from the floor next to the futon. The dark eyes seemed to seriously ponder the consequences if the teacher would continue their mission wearing only his black boxer briefs that were exhibiting the firm yet seemingly uptight ass and toned yet bruised thighs quite nicely to the pervert behind his back at that moment. The older shinobi decided to turn his eye away from the oblivious sensei, since getting an accidental morning wood would luckily just add yet another category of muscles aching like hell in his already steadily growing list of body parts he'd love to get rid of right now. That or he might just die from it, whichever came first. Either way, both options were something the copy-nin didn't feel too keen to explore on that morning, especially not with an audience provided by a fellow shinobi who had a sixth sense on awkward situations and how to turn them even more humiliating for others, especially if Hatake Kakashi was involved.

"Good morning, sensei." Nevertheless, being in pain wasn't a valid excuse to be rude.

"I managed to make us some breakfast in case you'd be daring enough to get up and crawl to join me." The jounin stopped the grimace from forming on his face as the words he just heard finally made through his ears to his brain, although without making any sense at that particular moment.

"...Come again?" With the tentative question, Kakashi gave a brief, baffled look over the edge of his comforter at Iruka who somehow had actually managed to pull his pants on and was now very, very slowly stretching his hands above his head in order to slip into a white striped tank top. Add some hissing, cursing and grimacing and voilà, the sensei was all dressed up. Still looking like shit but nonetheless, he was up while the elite jounin was still loitering under his blanket; the jounin who felt his ego bruise a tad bit more as he caught a glimpse of that damned smug shit-eating smirk spreading on that cut and bruised tan face.

"I said I made us some b – r – e – a – k – f – a – s – t, Kakashi-kun." Iruka's back was killing him, his legs were seconds away from giving in and it was getting increasingly hard to stand straight as the room felt inclined to shift constantly around him, but he'd be damned if he didn't notice the condition the other man was in, which was frankly seemingly shitty, nor rubbing the said man the wrong way the second he got the chance. 'That's right, you arrogant asswipe,' his all the while spreading grin told the superior shinobi, 'the little chuunin is up and good to go while you're still cuddling that pillow of yours, o the man of thousand egos.'

"I'll wait for you on the terrace. Feel free to get up, Kakashi-san," the honorific was purred with pure malice in Kakashi's darkening opinion, and with that the mangled brown-haired man once again hobbled out of the room but with much more dignity than a few moments earlier when on his way to relieve himself (which was a trial he never thought he'd experience before being older than at least ninety years).

It took Kakashi some precious seconds to gather the remnants of his famous hip and cool demeanor, as the nightmare in green would put it, before Iruka heard the doors to their bedroom and toilet open and close and the careful, shuffling sounds of a maimed body reached his ears. The teacher snickered as the mumbled curses wafted in the air while the older man dressed up. Pleased with having found the right strings to pull in order to get the lazy man out of his bed, Iruka fiddled the warm tea cup in his hands and held his eyes closed against the bright morning light. He was badly beaten, true, but he hadn't had so much fun in years when compared to yesterday's training sessions.

That and he also had felt something stir back in life inside him during their last match, like something once lost was finding its place again and the teacher had realized that he liked it. A lot.

A rather loud curse flew past him from inside their bedroom through the opened slide doors of their training room and Iruka felt a faint grin tug at his lips as he took a sip of his tea. It seemed that Kakashi had finally spotted the marks he had managed to inflict on the pale torso during their matches. The teacher gave a glance at his equally suffered hands. He was surprised to find out that he was actually a rather skilled fighter without all of his chakra, but also quite pleased with the pale cyclops who was actually a very good teacher when he chose to. Kakashi never took their squabbling seriously and didn't intentionally demean Iruka whenever he couldn't land a decent hit on the jounin. On the contrary, the silver-haired man took notes when they fought and actually provided good hints on how to create a better attack when the next opportunity came. After beating the shit out of him while smirking all the way like the sadist the man was, of course. It was a habit they had created rather accidentally during their very first match in the past. A wry smirk stretched on the scarred face and Iruka felt his body shake with silent chuckle when the memories of their first fights came back to his mind.

"You have three seconds to explain yourself before my fist takes permanent residence in your gut, sensei."

Good that Iruka was a professional. Otherwise Kakashi would be missing more than that tongue already.

While reigning in his reflex to spin around on the spot and use his left hand to smash the tea cup against the wall beam next to him in order to give it sharp edges deadly enough to cut whatever body part the asshole behind his back was willing to jeopardize while his right hand would have made sure the fucker wouldn't move even a quarter of an inch before making the said cuts, Iruka chose to calmly set down his tea before turning to meet the dark gray eye that was boring holes into his head.

"I made you some coffee, Kakashi-san." Not to forget the bright smile on his lips, of course.

"That was good. Thank you, sensei."

Empty plates were piled on the small tray between them as they devoured the breakfast Iruka had managed to create for them. Even if it was simple and consisting of fruit and fish mostly (apparently Tsunade had forgotten to mention that she'd put them on a diet as well, something they both deemed to be as plausible as Jiraya-sama writing juvenile literature), it was still enjoyed with a healthy appetite. Their bodies were starving. Apparently sparring without all of their chakra reserves also affected their metabolism and the sense of hunger. Something to keep in mind when out on a mission.

"I'm glad you liked it. Don't get used to it, though, I think I used my quota of being nice to you for the rest of the week," the chuunin said and the dark eyes glinted with amusement as Iruka gave a rather challenging look at the older man beside him. He was glad that Kakashi had enjoyed their breakfast fully, the man had even mind enough to thank Iruka for the coffee he had brewed for the jounin. Being a tea drinker didn't mean he couldn't handle one coffee maker. They had manuals for a reason.

"Maa, I'll make us lunch then. Sharing the chores."

"You mean after rendering me into an immobile heap of beaten mush on the floor so I wouldn't be able to do it anyhow, Kakashi-san?"

The mismatched eyes arched into delighted crescents. "Precisely."

"How thoughtful of you," Iruka snorted and took the last sips of his sixth tea. Then he reached to his side and took the small notebook they had found from Tsunade's bag the previous day. At the passing look he managed to catch on the chuunin's face, Kakashi gave the book a suspecting glance over the edge of his mug. He didn't like the amused look he had seen on the other. The man was onto something. As it was, the book was passed between the tan hands before stopping in one and raised to their eye-level, the dark eyes peering at its seemingly harmless covers. "We both read this notebook yesterday, right?"

Now Kakashi was really worried, that smile wasn't boding anything good."..Yeah?"

"Did you notice it had seals on it?" Iruka dangled the book between his fingers with a raised eyebrow directed at it.

With his curiosity now sufficiently teased by the cunning chuunin, Kakashi took the book from the tan fingers and gave it a thorough scan with his Sharingan only for a second in order not to waste away any more chakra than necessary. The sudden silence that ensued was tangible between them. "...What the hell?" The jounin was astounded. Never during his career had any Hokage relied on so firm precautions with his mission details than Tsunade. He gave a look at Iruka and saw that the other was thinking the same.

They didn't like it.

Not one bit.

"She really knows us, neh?" Iruka chuckled and snapped Kakashi out of his speculations. The gray eye cast a questioning look at the chuunin and the corners of the dark, narrow eyes crinkled with bright amusement on the teacher's face. Then the jounin seemed to catch on what the dark-skinned had man meant and they both shared bemused chuckles over the small book.

"She really seems to, sensei." Kakashi tapped the book with his fingers. "Impressive."

The fact was that they were both notoriously nosy, especially when it came to mission details, and it seemed that their Hokage had anticipated that they would dig out everything there was to dig when concerning the set up of their cooperation.

"The seal type she used opens one spread at a time as the time goes by. It has about five seals, but I couldn't deduce the time range they're set for. We'll just have to wait, I guess, since it isn't wise to use your chakra on your sharingan when you'd need it constantly during our fights." Iruka scratched the scar on his nose. He really didn't mean to doubt that they weren't given all the information concerning the research, but he just had to check if that small book really had only a briefing about their fighting times, chakra seals and the sample taking. He knew there was something fishy going on with that book the moment he took it out of that bag.

Kakashi opened the book and gave the brand new pages a quick read. Apparently his surprises didn't end yet for the day. The new spread was filled with small illustrations of different stretches Tsunade seemed to think necessary for them in the morning, in the evening and both before and after every match. That wasn't the whole surprise, though.

All of the stretches were meant to be carried out with a partner.

This was going to be a trying mission for both of them.

"...I sense someone tensing up, sensei."

"Oh hush," Iruka hissed, his glaring brown eyes a mere ten inches away from Kakashi's as the two men were standing at the backyard of the house, both having their legs firmly planted on the grass and both holding their hands on each others' shoulders, holding themselves an arms-length away from one another. As they both knew that Godaime had a sixth sense on her patients' bluffs when it came to their physiotherapy and that her wrath alone was already keeping the times in the hospital quite busy as it was, the men decided it would be less humiliating to do them altogether than face the burning amber eyes and the steel fists of their leader.

Had they known how awkward it would actually get when bending down from their knees like the elderly nins in the parks while holding another shinobi a little too close for comfort, moreover trying to hold from collapsing at the same time because of the sheer pain the stance caused, they may have spent another minute to reconsider their decision.

Iruka panted a little as they arose to stand up before bending down again, and Kakashi had to admit that even he felt a bit out of breath after holding the first stance for five minutes. He gave the younger nin a little squeeze on the man's shoulder and received a similar one on his. It was something he was taught in ANBU and what proved to be rather handy when words would take too much effort. They nodded at each other and slowly began their way down once more.

"Agh..shit..how in hell do you hold up so well..?" Iruka grunted as his thighs screamed in pain and his knees complained. Apparently launching oneself from a wall wasn't the brightest thing to do.

"Being an ANBU helps. Once one gets trained properly it also gets easier to bear the pain." Kakashi gave the tiniest shrug he could with his occupied shoulders. He usually didn't like to speak about his past career before the chaos triplets, but somehow Iruka's grimacing face was giving him enough reason to elaborate on his tolerance on pain. Not that he wasn't groaning in agony inside his mind at that moment, that is. The dark brown eyes stopped their wincing to look deep into the gray eye which started to look more uncomfortable than unreadable with every passing second under the teacher's examining gaze. Then the observing eyes shifted away and Kakashi witnessed how a small red tinge took over the high cheekbones.

"..Silly me. Sorry, Kakashi-san."

"..No worries. It's what it is, those things are the past now. What about your back then?"

Iruka snapped his eyes to stare again at the older man. The gray eye was as unreadable as ever over the mask, but the curiosity was there. Iruka could feel the small twinges of pain on his spine, and after the other's revelation he did feel obliged to share something about himself to the now silent man. He gave a small shrug as well. "It doesn't hurt anymore on daily basis, if that's what you think. It took about half the year to get rid of the pain, though. Another half for it to really function properly, since Mizuki had managed to hit quite close the verterbrae and the nerves around them. I was indeed lucky that night. Nowadays, not so much fuss about it. Although it does hurt like hell now, thanks to someone eagerly serving me a menu of feet and fists yesterday," he gave a dry smirk at the pale man. He didn't want to worry the other, but he knew that Kakashi had stared at him for just a second the previous evening when they had showered after their last match before going to sleep. It was just a matter of when the curious bugger would probe the subject.

"Not to forget the service with a smile, eh?" Kakashi's voice gained again an amused tone, for which they were both grateful. They stood there, their aching knees bent, and the village around them filled the air with the day's noises carried over the fence.

"Kakashi-san."

"Hm?"

"..I can't feel my left leg anymore."

Kakashi dropped down and slid beneath Iruka's swinging leg, then stood up and whacked the man on the back with his both fists, thus sending the teacher stagger on the tatami mats. Iruka spun around with a growl and lifted his forearms to block the punches Kakashi delivered the next second, the jounin pushing the sensei backwards towards the nearest corner. The moment Iruka felt his back hit the wall he dodged down to the side as he could see the fist aiming for his head whiz through the air towards its goal. As he dodged, Iruka managed to punch straight at Kakashi's midriff, hence making the man double over as the air left him. Then the teacher lifted his leg and half pushed, half kicked the man away from him in order to get away from the wall. The pair fell silent, Kakashi leaning on his legs and Iruka heaving for air as he shifted his balance from one leg to another. Narrow gray eye examined the equally narrow brown ones.

"..Fuck." Iruka grimaced and suddenly collapsed on his knees on the floor while holding his sides with his hands. The pain was overwhelming, his already bruised sides throbbing with pure vengeance as they were once again violated. Kakashi was next to him in an instant, and when Iruka saw the passing smile on those masked lips he knew that he couldn't do anything to stop whatever the elite shinobi had in store for him.

The jounin landed a heavy blow with his both hands on the firm chest, taking the last wheeze of air out of Iruka's lungs. Iruka's eyes widened up and his mouth opened for a silent cry as he felt himself left without even a whiff of breath. Kakashi leaned down next to him, caught the man as he fell backwards towards the floor and slowly lowered the gaping chuunin on his back. Iruka gasped for air and for a moment the ex-ANBU really thought he had gone too far, but then the teacher proved him wrong once again when he managed to pull in huge gulps of breath, his skin returning slowly back to its normal sunny color.

The alarm began its beeping.

"You...cheap...bastard.." Iruka grabbed the masked man's cheek and pinched it for all its worth with his trembling fingers.

"Maa...always go for the kill, sensei." The gray eye gave a dry smile.

They both had small books on top of their heads as they sat cross-legged across from each other, the sunlight dancing on the walls surrounding them and thus casting indirect, soft light at the rather flat look from two dark eyes that questioned heavily the quite sheepish gaze in the lone gray.

"This is ridiculous, Kakashi-san."

"...Well, you never know before you try, sensei."

"...And why did you want us to try this?"

"Saw it in a movie once. Wanted to try and see what all the fuss was about."

Iruka snorted, snatched the book from upon Kakashi's head and gave the silver-haired dimwit a good whack with it. While the surprised jounin gathered himself from the floor, Iruka stood up and slowly hobbled to make some tea, coffee and fish sandwiches as a small snack for them before their next match, his gray thermal clothes swishing as he made his way into their kitchen.

That crazy jounin will be the death of him one of these days.

They held the arms straight, gripping their joined wrists while leaning backwards and filling the air in the room with pained hisses and gasps. They could feel their backs and shoulders complain about the hell they've been put through and quite frankly knowing that they'd be experiencing that a lot in these upcoming weeks did put a strain on their already ambivalent moods.

"Shit, shit, shit this hurts...ow..ow..oww..." Iruka groaned and hung his head downwards, his eyes tearing as a particularly nasty jab shot through his system. A low affirmative growl reached his ears and he had to sneak a peek at the other's face, just to be sure he heard right.

Not many got to see a sulking Hatake and survive to tell the tale.

Kakashi felt a small tremble on his arms and lifted his eye to find out just what was going on with his stretching partner. Only to face eyes filled with mirth and a twisting mouth biting on its bottom lip frantically.

That damn chuunin was laughing at him. Again.

"Something funny caught your eye, Iruka-sensei?" The icy look in the lone eye did sober Iruka's gleeful mind for a moment and the pain that had subsided just for a minute dashed for the chance it got. So instead of the bright laughter like the one on their previous evening, a suffering, low moan escaped the gasping mouth and the chuunin's eyes squint shut as he grimaced. A small pressure was felt on his wrist and he gave a small nod to the man, not trusting to open his eyes as yet another groan rippled from his throat. His back had reached the very peak on its scale of pain apparently.

"Oh fuck, shit, holy kami that feels like twenty Narutos plowing on my back...no..make it forty."

"Don't tense up, sensei. You should try to feel only your muscles rather than the pain surrounding them. That way you won't sprain them and actually help them to become relaxed and pliant again. It will hurt like hell, believe me I know, but it's worth it. Just breathe and take it slow." Kakashi gave an assuring smile against the skeptic look thrown at him and he slowly leaned more back, causing them both to tremble more as their muscles struggled against the slow stretch they were forced to take. Iruka's hands clawed harder on the jounin's as he tried to keep himself from falling to the ground. Kakashi was trying equally hard to gather his focus. Scratch being an ANBU, he felt like weeping like the three-year-old he was when he had stumbled and hit his head through a shoji screen wall while sparring with his father. More out of humiliation than pain, but weep he did.

They stood still for a moment, both doing their best with their resentful bodies. Then they slowly pulled each other back up and felt their arms tremble as they let go. Then both men shook their muscles and bent their sides cautiously for a moment before Kakashi strolled casually to the small alarm that was waiting patiently for the upcoming round to commence.

"Ready for the next round?"

As the jounin set the time and put the alarm back on its place, sensing the tremors of silently running feet on the matted floor was all the answer he needed.

Iruka grabbed hold underneath the jounin's arm pits and bent the man's arms up and back while he planted his feet firmly on the ground. Kakashi twisted himself in the iron hold and then suddenly plummeted forward as he took hold of Iruka's wrists from behind his head. He rolled his back forward and threw the surprised sensei over his back down on the floor. Iruka continued his momentum after his back hit the floor and rolled away from the other man just as the pale fist whammed on the floor right where his shoulder was seconds ago. The teacher rolled quickly on his feet and dashed at Kakashi from the man's side, aiming a nasty punch at the man's hip but missing the blow as his target dodged backwards. They stood up and circled the room, keenly waiting for the opening they knew the other would present, one way or another.

Iruka was the first to spot one.

Kakashi felt his body hit the wall as he was surprised by the teacher's accurate kick. In seconds the chuunin was over him, landing blows on his blocking hands with such enthusiasm and strength that he was rather doubtful if he'd be able to hold his coffee mug the next days after their session. Iruka drew his fists back for the deadlier blow and Kakashi chose that moment to put his own hands into more convenient use. The pale hands shot out to drive in sharp jabs on both tanned shoulders under that white and already sweaty tank top, effectively reducing the speed of the oncoming blow and giving himself time to slip away from the teacher's fists. He rounded the chuunin, grabbed the man's ponytail and forced the now struggling man against the wall with a thunk. Iruka managed to shield his head with his arm as Kakashi pounded his head against the wall once, then he felt stinging pain as the sadist in question yanked him back from his hair and threw down on the floor. The teacher instantly shielded his diaphragm and his head with both his legs and arms, stopping Kakashi's fists before they made contact. The jounin gave an evil smirk over the trembling arms and legs, then he grabbed the crossed wrists and started to force them over the tanned man's head in order to pin them to the floor. Iruka glared the man with all his might and resisted his intentions, the hands being pulled and twisted amidst their game. Then the older shinobi added his body's weight on top of the still bent knees and Iruka choked in agony, his legs being bent further against his middle, pushing his body more into fetal position on his back.

The sudden knee pressing down on his now exposed rear was highly unexpected, though.

Iruka jerked against the intrusion and the moment he realized the man's plot it was already too late. Kakashi victoriously pulled the hands above the chuunin's head, took hold of them with his one hand as the other hand started to press against the spasming side presented to him while he bent the teacher's body into an arc on the floor. Iruka realized he was royally screwed the moment Kakashi's legs managed to push his own legs apart and the man settled between them on his knees, leaving the chuunin open for the man to torment him. The jounin's knuckles dug deeper into his ribs and it took all his training for Iruka not to cry out in pain.

He would not crumble in front of this man.

No way in seven hells.

"You're quite something, sensei."

There was no way he could even snort for that line. Iruka twisted his arms against the hold, knowing he wouldn't last long in this position. He needed a plan. Fast.

The jounin knew he was in trouble when he spotted a familiar gleam in the glaring eyes.

Iruka bent his legs once again, brought them against jounin's lower body and started to push them against the joints between Kakashi's hips and thighs, creating an enormously uncomfortable pressure against the tender skin areas as the heels dug mercilessly further into them. Kakashi's free arm flung to tear away the imposing limbs, but two legs against one hand was proving to be a challenge. As he felt the man shift his weight more on his one knee only, that way giving a little more space for the chuunin's other leg to move, Iruka saw his chance and snapped his foot sharply at the man's groin. A strangled sound escaped the masked lips and the violated jounin jerked upwards, feeling slightly disoriented due the burning pain in his trousers, and the next thing he knew were two blows on his jaw and then hands shoving him to his side on the floor as the body once pinned underneath him rolled hastily away. Collecting all the temper he had to offer, Iruka staggered up and delivered the cruelest kick he could ever pull into the stomach of the man laying on the floor. The jounin doubled over and small heaving sounds escaped his lips while the chuunin swayed on his feet upon him.

The fact that he had apparently nailed the famous copy-nin for the second time slowly dawned on Iruka and he felt more than heard the small disbelieving chortle leave his lips.

The sound of alarm faded into darkness when the teacher saw the floor catch up to him as his mind shut down for a nap.

"..sei. Sensei."

The brown eyes squinted at the hurting light and tried to find their focus on whatever was disturbing his sleep. Iruka felt his throat to be dry, his lips been split from several spots and his temples throb.

"...Sensei?"

He didn't like that hesitating tone. Hesitating Kakashi meant Iruka with a headache.

"Really, sempai, give the man some air."

The snorting ANBU from yesterday. His headache became justified.

Iruka blinked his eyes slowly and after a moment they focused on two rather eccentric figures looking down at him, one with a black fabric mask covering half of his face while the other had his face completely hidden behind that unnerving porcelain mask. Talk about the inventiveness of shinobi fashion.

"..What..?" Iruka dared to cast a a look over the examining men and saw that they were in their bedroom. That and there was something probing his right leg at the exact moment his consciousness caught up with him. He lifted his head to give a better look at his leg. What he saw made both his blood boil and retreat from his suddenly pale cheeks. He was missing his black slacks and thus he was laying on his back in nothing more than his black boxer briefs and damp white tank top while the seemingly amused ANBU was sitting on his other side and the other prick on the other, all the while taking Iruka's blood sample from the joint of his hip and thigh. The chuunin did notice the bright green healing bandage on Kakashi's leg but that did nothing to lessen the homicidal urges surging into his mind and body the second he fully understood his situation.

It was a long month ahead of them and by all the things cruel and unholy he'd make the one-eyed dick's life a living hell during it.

As if sensing the seething sensei's speculations on how to make his peer suffer with unnecessary violence, the ANBU gave a polite cough and put his hands casually near the teacher's head. Iruka recognized the subtle warning for what it was and took a deep breath to calm his nerves. It wouldn't do to get an ANBU on his neck, after all, he was supposed to be a professional. The sting of the needle being pulled out caught his attention and he looked as Kakashi bound the bandage around his bruised thigh after sealing the vial with Iruka's blood in it, the heavy silence stretching between the three persons in their small bedroom.

"Sempai called for me to come and check if he had accidentally broken you, Umino-san." Was it him or did the ANBU sound very amused at those words?

"Huh?" Iruka heard his mouth join the conversation without the consent of his brain.

"He means that I was merely concerned if you'd used too much chakra and thought that since I couldn't do any excessive healing due to my own seal, it would be wise to call for someone else in case you needed more medical attention than just rest and painkillers", Kakashi huffed and glared at the snorting ANBU over the resting teacher, his next words slow and filled with a promise of pain. "And since Tsunade-sama was away in a meeting I had no other choice than to call for ANBU, as they are the only ones beside us to be able to enter here. Thank you for your time, kohai."

The ANBU gave a nod with a small chuckle, then stood up and gave a small look down at Iruka.

"You'll be fine, sensei. Just rest for a few hours and eat something. You still have chakra left, but your body is exhausted. Don't push it too much."

Iruka gave the man a slow nod while he stayed laying on the futon, not trusting himself to sit up just yet, and he heard Kakashi give a small grunt as his reply. The masked ANBU lifted two of his fingers as a farewell and vanished. The silence between them two left in the room enveloped them and Iruka could feel the slow burning creep on his cheeks as he considered his vulnerable state. That and the fact that he had managed to present himself to the same frigging ANBU the second time while wearing only his underwear. If those talks about the importance of the first ten seconds when giving the first impression were true, the now cherry-red teacher was sure that the ANBU in question had no doubts whatsoever about his capability as a chuunin academy teacher.

He could never again scold the ANBU for stealing their weekend sake from the mission room.

It was Kakashi to snap Iruka out of his uneasy thoughts. The jounin tapped the chuunin's leg, gaining a rather dark glare from the man on the mattress, and gave the teacher a small placating smile under his mask, the mismatched eyes turning into brightly smiling crescents as well.

"Do you want your supper served in bed, Iruka-sensei?"

Chapter Text

The still warm rays of falling dusk danced over and through the silent, small and seemingly harmless-looking light gray house surrounded by a high fence wall. The light began its explorations by creeping over the worn gray boards of the wooden terrace towards two opened doorways, the other leading the curious rays into a big dim training room, the other into the kitchen. The only sound heard inside the kitchen walls was the faint chugging sound of the coffee maker on the counter, as the lines of light stretched on the white cupboard doors, crawled to the ceiling and slowly faded into shadows as the bravest of them moved to explore the dark corridor with three doors. The more shy rays decided to take a peek inside the now silent training room with tatami mats. The light expanded itself in every corner it could possibly find within the wide and ascetic room, delighted when no obstacles obscured its way as it filled the faint dents of missed punches on the floor and the walls with pleasure, save for one rude alarm put against one wall, and before it knew it it had wandered into a smaller room where the sound of kitchen machinery switched into more natural, human sounds.

Sniffling, to be more specific.

Kakashi lowered his Icha Icha Travel-set vol. 3 and cast a nonchalant look at the sleeping form curled up on its own futon, blissfully unconscious and uncaring for the rest of the world around them. It's been two hours since the now faintly snoring sensei had laid his head on his pillow and zoned out almost instantly after having dressed on his black slacks and eaten the small supper Kakashi had prepared for them. It seemed that the man was more worn-out than he had appeared to be. Training with the current chakra reserves was proving to be a bigger challenge for both of them than they had anticipated. The muscle ache was something they were both used to while working as shinobi, true, but then again, they had medical nins to keep them in shape (or alive in jounin's case) whenever injuries happened, or them being skilled enough to deal with them on their own, which was their case during their training before this assignment. In this case, on the other hand, they could only do small healing on the worst sprains, cuts and bruises and it still left a whole bunch of others untreated.

The healing bandages they used didn't cover even half of their muscles hurting like hell.

A small cough caught the jounin's attention and he gave another brief look at the slumbering chuunin. Maybe Iruka had had similar doubts that their approach on the subject had been miscalculated. They seemed to fight similarly as before the mission, even though they knew very well that they had less chakra in their use than usually. Which basically meant introducing their bodies to a whole different reality than they were used to. Especially when it came to the snoozing devil ten feet away. In Kakashi's books, Iruka's points had leveled up a few notches during their second day. Fun sparring partner aside, that man was also packed up with a hefty amount of endurance and patience, which was something Kakashi valued highly in his fellow shinobi (and also something briefly reminding him of his first and last three-man cell).

Though the jounin did know better. The tan sensei in question had been a foreign name in their active mission duty lists because of his very nature plus his status as a good academy teacher. The soundly sleeping man did have a temper like all levels of hell combined, but to actually kill on everyday basis was a very different case. Iruka was a man to trust your back to, but only when the situation called for retreat or distraction and either setting or disassembling traps. Kakashi had speculated for a while that the dark-haired pest performed his profession best when it came to indirect killing. Traps and barriers were obviously the intelligent chuunin's ideal tool, he was after all the one who found the right training seals for them, and the now slightly amused copy-nin did recall a day or two when he had been unlucky enough to get a taste of that inventive sadistic mind that was Umino Iruka.

He had never spent so agonizing eight hours with a mere manila rope and a wooden spatula.

It took three weeks to assure the Hokage that he wasn't into bondage of any kind since the woman saw the rope marks on his skin. Not to mention avoiding Gai for two weeks as the green beast insisted them to try his new training method called Shinobi Mail Package. Even thinking about the said hemp fiber made his skin itch.

The misused spatula on its part was promptly annihilated the instant it was flung out of the window with great force and used for target practice for the peeved and appalled lightning user.

Kakashi scratched absently his suddenly itching wrist and resumed his reading as the breathing of the other man evened out again once he had rolled on his side. After a few minutes of eying the always entertaining centerfold images, the cold gray eye turned once more to observe the peaceful sleeper. After three pensive minutes, the silver-haired man had reached his conclusion on the matter.

Enough with giving the man some rest, it was time to make the brown-haired thorn on his ass pay for messing with his crown jewels.

For the second time.

Iruka woke up to an enticing scent that slithered its way into his dream. The dark eyes opened up into thin slits as the chuunin in question tried to dig his memory for why that particular scent sent bells ringing in his head, and why they resembled alarms going off.

That was the scent of steeping tea.

But not just any tea.

The current pain be damned, the academy instructor had never thought he could heave himself up so effortlessly from his futon and stumble to the training room from where the now all too familiar scent was wafting into his nostrils. The alarm bells started to chime with a little higher pitch and with a slightly faster tempo as he finally found the correct specimen from the vast tea archives he had built up in his memory over the years as a happy tea addict.

That was his evening oolong with the faint palate of airy sweetness and ripe fruit flesh in the aftertaste.

The slightly disoriented sensei stopped abruptly to the threshold between their bedroom and training room as his eyes finally managed to focus on the sight before him. There was Kakashi, sitting cross-legged on the floor with one of his porn books in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. However, the object gaining Iruka's full attention wasn't the man nor his current centerfolds. It was the small set of one tea pot and a cup sitting innocently on a tray right in front of the jounin who seemed to be completely absorbed into his book. The sight unraveling before the chuunin was calm and collected altogether.

"...Maa, evening, Iruka-sensei. Had a good nap? I made you some tea."

Hell, the alarm was downright roaring in his head at that moment.

"...What's this, Kakashi-san?" Iruka knew he shouldn't ask, he shouldn't let the curiosity get the better of him, but damn that sweet, sweet lingering aroma was so tempting and being right there for him to take and for the life of him he couldn't think a maneuvre so skilled to just snatch that tray and fortify himself into their bedroom without getting that far too smug-looking bastard on his back. It seemed that the situation was to be handled with a different tactic. Iruka swallowed the nervous tension down and slowly settled to sit across from the now reading man, not noticing how the bored gray eye watched every twitch of his muscles, counting hundreds of counterattacks based on every second it took for the chuunin to sit down cross-legged on the floor. The dark, speculating eyes eyed the tray and its contents before rising back to examine the mismatched eyes which arched into happy crescents.

"I found your stash of tea and took the liberty to prepare you some. I hope that's okay."

One slender eyebrow rose to meet that sentence and the wariness in the observing gaze tripled. Then the eyes shifted back to stare at the strange offer of truce Iruka hoped it to be. He knew better, though. Friendly gestures and Hatake Kakashi were an equation which was usually reserved for situations called 'Enjoy while you still breathe through only two holes in your head for another five minutes'. At least in their case. If he remembered correctly, the previous one occurred right after that hilariously entertaining escapade with the-

For the briefest moment the chuunin wondered if it could actually be possible to become deaf due to the violent decibels booming inside one's head.

"...It's alright..Kakashi-san. This type is my favorite." He may be maimed in seconds, but he would still take a sip even if it killed him. Slowly and carefully Iruka reached for the tea pot, glanced at the slightly smiling jounin, poured calmly the oh so delicious beverage into his cup and took an experimenting sniff on the scent. As he didn't find a trace of any drug he could recognize, the now seemingly nervous sensei prayed fervently that the jounin wasn't psycho enough to go and try the odorless, equivalent of the deadlier, drugs on him. He didn't kick that hard, nor as accurately as-

"It'll get cold if you keep just breathing it, sensei. Unless this blend was something you just sniffed, in which case I won't stop you."

Iruka let a low warning growl rumble from his throat at those smoothly said words before moving the cup to his lips, inhaling the airy aroma accompanied with his prayers for the last time and giving the last piercing glare at the way too expectant-looking jounin sitting across him...and took a slow sip.

It took a moment for Iruka to realize that the sound of bells wasn't anymore heard from inside his head.

It came from somewhere much, much lower.

"...Maa, I'd just sit still and listen carefully for a moment if I were you, sensei." The smooth, low voice rumbled suddenly right next to his ear and the teacher took a second to understand that the jounin had moved from his spot to crouch right before him, leaning that mangled yet firm body so close that it was shinobi's equivalent of feeling up someone, while the pale hand had taken a strong hold on his own still holding the tea cup on his lips as the masked mouth hovered next to his ear. Iruka could feel his pulse speed up and the already chilled tea felt much hotter against his lips. Did the man put some poison in his tea after all since it was so hard to breath suddenly? The lean body shifted its muscles and Iruka felt a shudder travel down his spine.

"...May I assume that Naruto always ranted to you about our training methods while I had the official permission to torment those three?" The low and dangerous voice resonated near his ear and after a second the teacher realized he was holding his cup in a very much tighter grip. Iruka felt himself nod stiffly at the question, the words long dead on his tongue.

"...Good. Then you know already half of the idea I got and what I'd like us to try. " The small pressure on his right hipbone would have sent Iruka jerking back if he hadn't been so well trained to know when it's highly recommended to stay rooted on the spot if one didn't wish to examine their internal organs spilled on the floor for a closer look. He could hear a faint chiming of a small bell and felt the deft fingers fiddle with the waistband of his trousers, attaching something on the black fabric. Something light which now hung from his slacks against his thigh.

"I assume you have also discovered some difficulties and misjudged approaches we've had on this mission, neh, sensei?" Kakashi leaned back on his heels and gave the chuunin the much needed air between them. It was interesting for the jounin to see the usually very verbal teacher rendered speechless, furthermore witness how well the man had actually been trained for what it came to controlling one's body. Although the scarlet blush reaching to the watched man's hairline and down his neck made Kakashi's evening more than enough.

"...Y..Yes, I have, Kakashi-san." Iruka swallowed thickly as he filled his lungs with air and lowered his cup on his lap before his dark eyes narrowed their look at the masked man still sitting way too close for comfort. "The way we have been fighting resembles the previous times before we were given this task. That may become a problem, since our bodies are in a different situation now." The small nod gave him courage enough to continue. "It seems that my muscles have been in a shock since yesterday, and even if it is only a question of time when they would adjust and start working properly with this method we're using, it would be foolish to keep up the current way of sparring we have. It would become a threat for this mission since accidents tend to happen when one gets immersed into the things that are done...one of us might get severely injured, with or without the other's help." The dark gaze was again back to its professional hardness as the last words left the chuunin's mouth. "We will fail this mission if we didn't retract our current approach on this subject and find another methods to put into use."

The small silence stretched between them as the dark brown eyes bored into one narrow gray. The two shinobis measured one another, carefully weighing their options on the dilemma they now had in their hands, as well their capability to finish the mission without any hitches. Then the older man's eyes smiled brightly and Iruka could once again hear the sound of a small bell as the older man scooted back, took the now cold tea from Iruka's hand and took their drinks with the small tray back to the kitchen. Iruka stole a glance down to see what was it that the silver-haired man had attached on him, only to spot an innocent silver bell hanging against his thigh at the end of a thin red thread. The moment he recognized the bell, the eccentric name of one particular jutsu he had been introduced with by his favorite blond bane of existence came smacking him down on the head and his cheeks heated up once again in mere two seconds.

'One thousand years of pain.'

He should have kicked harder. Then it would be reasonable.

"Should we begin our last round for the day then?"

Iruka snapped his eyes to look at the older man who stood by the alarm. The teacher stood up as well and straightened his drooping ponytail while he glanced at the other man's waist and spotted the bell that he knew had to be there. After all, he knew there were supposed to be two bells, and also he knew fairly well the impressive (and rather vengeful) mind of Hatake Kakashi when it came to creating sparring lessons. The teacher had no doubts that the genius had come up with a solution he just needed to have Iruka's consent for. A confirmation the chuunin had just now provided by telling the man his own findings. A wry, lopsided smirk tugged Iruka's lips and he shook his head a little, gaining a wondering glance from his opponent. The grin stretched itself fully on the scarred face as the teacher met the speculating look in that gray eye.

"Saa, just figured that you're not called genius for nothing, Kakashi-san. Same for an utter jerk, though." Iruka chuckled brightly at the slightly appalled look he received before the ex-ANBU recomposed himself and gave a small awkward cough.

"...Maa, flattering words aside, I thought we could use some basic methods to see what our bodies can actually achieve without pushing them too far all the time. Besides, our muscles will kill us in our sleep if we were to torture them any more than we have already." The older shinobi set the timer for thirty minutes and Kakashi could feel the eyes observing him keenly as he put the alarm back on the floor against the wall and righted himself back up.

"What basics do you mean, Kakashi-san?" Iruka had to wonder on which scale Kakashi was evaluating their skills. If the meant basics were designed for jounin or ANBU then what was only playing games for the jounin was highly over the top for Iruka. If they were the ones meant for chuunin and genin, on the other hand..well, then he had a bored bingo book bugger in his hands, which was way worse than being dragged into the insanity that was jounin training.

The mismatched eyes both crinkled into happy smile, and, with all the honesty left somewhere in him, Kakashi couldn't help but admit that he really enjoyed the situation he was about to put them into. If his estimates were correct, they could actually have plenty of good results instead of giving Tsunade-sama a valid reason to be drunk during duty. Hell, he could almost describe the feeling in his gut as 'giddy'.

"We'll play the game of it."

The stunned look on that tan face made his year.

"..Come again? Kakashi-san, with all due respect-"

"Don't underestimate the inventiveness and endurance of toddlers for what it comes to effective training, sensei. Pay better attention to their games the next time you see them at it. You might learn a thing or two from them. Now then, since we have only twenty-five minutes left..." Kakashi took a better stance, clearly signaling the other man that the time for chit-chat was long over. "...The rules are simple. We will both do the chasing. You get the bell, you win. You lose the bell, you lose your morning tea."

"WHAT?!"

"Simple, neh? Or would you want me to draw it-"

"Why the hell am I the only one who would lose something in case you snatch my bell? That's not fair, Kakashi-san!"

"Maa, sensei, that's beside the point-"

"It is definitely a point! You should also lose something in case I manage to snatch that thing from you." Iruka knew he was sulking, and he could see the smug ass enjoy every second of it, but damn it he would not play the game with unfair rules. His sense of justice was in the past the reason he was usually always the referee for what it came to childhood games, and he didn't intend to tarnish that nicely created reputation either. The amused glance from the slightly more narrowed gray eye made him reconsider his words, though.

"Oh, I will, sensei."

"What then?"

"Professional pride."

Iruka blinked at that sentence several times before the meaning behind those words sunk in. For the more ignorant, those words would have seem gallant, even humble and mature, but the now seething sensei was as far from being ignorant as Genma-san was from being a prudish, blushing virgin bride.

That obnoxious, pompous, arrogant monkey's ass was insulting him.

"..Fine then." Kakashi felt a smug grin form on his masked lips as the glorious glow on those cheekbones settled on a fainter tinge of clear irritation when Iruka took an offensive stance and pierced the jounin with eyes that blazed with imminent doom. "...I'll take on that offer, Kakashi-san, as well as I will, with all my might and professionalism, take those bells from you. All three of them."

If a look could kill, the jounin on the receiving end estimated it would hardly even do a scratch on him since he would already be a charred, smoking lump of ash and bones by that velvety, heated voice alone. Thus he couldn't help but add one more barrel of gunpowder in that fire.

"Better three than just one, neh, Iruka-sensei?"

The distant sound of a very strained string snapping finally was sweet music to his ears. [1]

Iruka let out an enraged shout as he ducked down and all but surged at the other man, either to get the bell or the jounin's balls, both options something that Kakashi wasn't too keen to find out. The jounin dodged by leaping to the side, only to get face to face with the chuunin since he forgot to anticipate how quick reflexes the younger man had developed while having Naruto in his class. Kakashi spun around to the opposite direction on the balls of his feet and quickly rounded the sensei from the man's backside, but the man had already caught on his plan and shifted his hips away from the reaching fingers as he too spun around and stepped a few feet away from the other. They stood there, both men carefully assessing their hurting muscles and how far they could actually go with their new game. Iruka leaned down a bit and kneaded his thighs without losing his sight on the other man, and was delighted to see the considering look on the masked face. It was good to know that despite their differences the sense of pain seemed to be equal for them.

Kakashi shifted his weight from one leg to other before going for Iruka's bell, giving the chuunin hardly an opportunity to shield it as one pale hand made an attempt to grab the teacher's side and the other take the glinting prize. Iruka twisted his hips away and dashed backwards, dodging in every way he could as he held his bell away from those nimble hands. Kakashi plummeted aggressively forward but his intimidating approach was greeted with a sharp slap on his palm and another slap on the back of his head as Iruka stepped away from him and sent him staggering past the tan man. The stunned jounin stilled for a moment before turning his head to look at the suddenly pretty confident man taking a better stand behind his back. A playful smirk stretched on Iruka's face and his dark eyes glinted with mischief as he gave the jounin an exaggeratedly slow once-over and cocked his brown-haired head to the side.

"In case you've forgotten, copy-nin-san, you're speaking to an academy teacher. Observing toddlers is what I do best. And dealing with one in particular is my specialty."

The low huff hit him like a shock wave through the suddenly very tense ambiance. In seconds the older man was right next to the younger one and before he knew it took all of Iruka's concentration to focus on the hands all over him by grabbing, pushing, hitting and twisting them away from his bell and his already sweating torso. The men fell into frantic game of tag as they both made simultaneous efforts on dodging and snatching the bells that filled the room with their high pitched chimes. Kakashi grabbed one of Iruka's hands that had already managed to stroke the metal surface of the bell and yanked the sensei towards him in order to make the man lose his game and give Kakashi an easy win. He cursed under his breath as the ever so damned fast and flexible sensei spun around with his other hand still held captive, took hold on the reaching jounin's hand with his other and backed them roughly up against the nearest wall, his body pinning the jounin behind his back. They pulled, twisted, shook and pushed, but neither of them would let go of the other's wrist nor would manage to free the caught hand from the other's grip. In order to win the fight by surprise factor, Kakashi quickly let go of Iruka's hand and swiftly jabbed for the bell but found his wrist taken into firm hold before his fingers could trace more than the red thread. Iruka leaned swiftly forward and then all but slammed his back against the other man behind him, hearing the pleasing sound of flesh hitting hard wall and feeling a small gust of breath against his neck as Kakashi let out a sharp hiss. Iruka felt his hands tremble already as he fought to keep a good hold onto the struggling man while he repeated his tactic of hitting the man with his back for a couple of times more in hopes for wearing the man out before his hands lost their strength.

The sharp sting of teeth biting into his neck caught him by surprise and he let out a shocked cry as his body arched and jerked violently, giving the more experienced nin an opening the man had been patiently waiting for.

Kakashi freed his hands from the now sloppy grip and shoved the sensei off of him, then took a good hold of the stumbling man's shoulder, yanked him backwards and kicked the popliteal areas of the man's legs. Iruka dropped on his back to the ground with a loud thunk, grimacing in discomfort as his muscles opposed the sudden change of position and the rather hard impact. After a small silence the sensei inhaled calmly and carefully crawled up on his heels in order to squat on the floor, a nervous smile tilting his lips as he cautiously tilted his dark head to look at the stoic jounin who hovered above him.

"..I'm not usually the one to get the rules wrong, but...why didn't you take it?"

"Five more minutes, sensei."

The dawning look of horrid realization in those dark brown eyes was a feast to his ego.

"..Stop that."

"Maa, stop what, sensei?" Snicker.

"You know perfectly well what."

"As elaborate as always, eh." Another snicker.

"That unnerving snickering, you ass. Besides, it's your fault."

"Maa, I didn't build the walls here. If I did...well, no, they would be exactly as rude as they're now." Snicker turned into chuckle. "Furthermore, wasn't it someone else who first decided to try making a jounin-shaped hole in one of them? That wall had all the reason to be rude, sensei."

"Oh go and fu- GYAGH! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

"Putting on some ice -"

"NOT ON MY GROIN, YOU PERV!"

"Maa, my bad...Do you want me to-"

"Whatever you're mulling on that masked tongue I swear I'll punch that smirking mouth of yours so hard my fist will rip a hole into that pathetic piece of fabric and then mutilate your lower face so thoroughly that you'd actually have a reason to hide it if those next words hold any innuendos in them, Hatake-san."

"Maa, maa, aren't we touchy today, sensei."

"So would you be with a lump the size of Bull's snout on your temple," Iruka mumbled and winced as Kakashi made the last swipes on the small cut on the throbbing, bruised temple and then covered it with a healing bandage before putting a small bag of ice against it. Iruka grunted and took hold of the ice pack and pressed it against his head. Never had he even considered the possibility to be able to humiliate himself so utterly in mere five minutes. That must be his record.

"You're not feeling dizzy, are you?" Kakashi sat next to the man on the terrace and gave a concerned look despite the amused tone. He could also heal that injury, but then again it did seem like the ones that hurt only for a while before settling for a mere bruise, and they had healing bandages for a reason. At least the teacher didn't show any signs of concussion.

"No, I don't feel like fainting or anything. Thank you...though..for getting the ice." Iruka sighed and rubbed his eyes in a frustrated manner with his free hand. The men stayed silent, both lost in their thoughts as the sounds of nightlife crept over the fence. The dim lights of the streets glowed over the rim of the wooden boards and they could hear the bustling sounds of shinobis and civilians alike as they made their ways into their homes, to their lovers or to just grab a drink or four.

Kakashi leaned back on the terrace floor and put his hands under his head before lifting his eye to observe the dark sky above them. The day had been both excruciating and fun on most parts, save the constant ache they both felt in their bodies. They had fulfilled the tasks given to them obediently, missing a stretch or two occasionally by accident, and the samples were ready for Tsunade-sama's visit for the next day, and his ego was once again content due to his latest win. Yet the copy-nin had a feeling that something was amiss here. The gray eye glanced at the dark-skinned man who was still nursing his head.

"Iruka-sensei."

"Mm-hmm?"

"How do you actually feel when you spar with me?"

The dark eyes, almost black in the night's shadows, landed on the gray one and the teacher shifted a little in order to lean against the beam behind him. The chuunin's face was unreadable for a while before Iruka cocked an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that, Kakashi-san?"

"..Ah, well, you know, me being the elite and all that," Kakashi shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, you don't seem to be afraid of me even when many others are."

"Ah. That." Iruka's lips tilted into a small smile. "What gives you the impression that I'm not?"

Now that was an answer Kakashi didn't expect. He propped himself on his elbows and studied the man in front of him before his gray eye turned into a flat look. "You're mean to me."

The bright bark of laughter echoed at the small backyard as well in the empty rooms of the training house and once again the famous Sharingan user had the questionable privilege to witness Umino Iruka on the verge of hysterics. The younger man laughed hard and loud for a good few minutes before he winced and yet again pressed the ice pack against his head while wiping his eyes with his other hand. The dark eyes turned to look at the disgruntled jounin with amusement and the sensei stifled a chuckle behind his hand as the look he received took a turn to honest malevolence.

"And..and how does that give you the impression that I'm not afraid of you?" Iruka had a hard time to keep the guffaws to himself when he was faced with the pouting elite. Really, that man was the walking nightmare to most shinobi, both foe and ally, and here he was, a mere teacher, seeing the same man sulk like a five-year-old.

"Since most people know they wouldn't live any longer if they pissed me off. Yet you just seem to gain more spark in your system everytime we fight," Kakashi said with a rather flat tone even though he was slightly fuming in his mind. Damn that teacher and the man's own inside jokes on his expense. Maybe if he could someday use his Sharingan on that bastard he could see what made the man so confident that he had no qualms on laughing his ass off in front of Hatake Kakashi, moreover at Hatake Kakashi.

"Saa, but that doesn't mean that I'm not scared of you on some degree, Kakashi-san. Maybe that's actually the key factor as to why I want to fight with you. Have you ever considered that option?" Iruka cocked an eyebrow and glanced at the sky above them, admiring the starry darkness as well enjoying the blissful silence that was sweet music to his ears for the full three seconds it lasted. Small joys.

"Why would you train with a man who you're scared of?" With all due respect to the life and its twisted sense of irony, the jounin felt more than just baffled at that moment. Why would Iruka have willingly sought him out months ago in order to beat the crap out of him after his latest stunt if the man was afraid of him?

"I just do. It's as simple as that," Iruka said and gave a small shrug. "And it's easier to not hold back when fighting with a more or less stranger rather than sparring with a close friend, even though we've become more like acquaintances nowadays. Besides, you're a really good sensei, Kakashi-san, with all things considered," and with that Iruka gave a pointed look at the two Icha Ichas lying next to the older man.

"But that would also make you to push yourself harder than you should," Kakashi said slowly and sat up on the wooden floorboards in order to cast a more serious gaze at the teacher who gave a small shrug on that argument. "You're doing it now as well, even when you know you're a fine opponent as you are and I won't hold your rank against you. Except to rile you up occasionally."

Iruka gave a snort at that, he knew perfectly well how good ammo the other man had against his ego. "I know. But that's what we've been fixing for the last months among the other things, neh?" He turned once again to look at the sky.

Kakashi followed his gaze and fiddled his fingers on his lap. The teacher was right, that was the first thing they started to work with after their initial match back then as soon as Iruka had been able to walk properly again. And the man had improved quite well from there, Kakashi gave him that, but they were still missing something vital for Iruka to really feel confident enough as his sparring partner in order to stop abusing his body that much.

"..I'm also aware of the huge gap we have between us, Kakashi-san, and I'm not trying to cover it...but to make myself a little bit more compatible for what it comes to battles..that would be more than sufficient." Kakashi's ears perked on the surprisingly somber voice and as he turned to look at the man he saw the teacher unwrap the healing bandage from his head and fold it into a neat bundle. The full lips were drawn into a grim line and the dark eyes were pensive, as if the man was carefully assessing his next words. "I want to be able to protect others more than I have been capable of. Not to mention the one in particular."

The evening sounds filled the otherwise silent air as the two shinobis let the words float into the vast sky expanding over the village they both held dear. They both knew the trying times were on their way as soon as the most hyperactive ninja [2] ever trained to this profession came back through the front gates, as well they knew they'd do all they could to help the kid on his way to achieve his dreams.

The sudden clicking sound shook Kakashi out of his heavy thoughts and his gaze sought out the sensei who had somehow managed to sneak on the other side of him. What made the gray eye widen and the silver eyebrows twitch rather violently wasn't the evil smirk on that bruised face, but the seemingly innocent-looking wooden box that had swallowed his beloved books. Iruka slowly backed at the dark yard with the box under his arm as the thundering glare followed his every step and the jounin's muscles tensed visibly. The crazy smirk on the chuunin's face said it all.

"I'm not above messing with your porn collection either."

As the night fell the citizens of Konoha were blissfully unaware of how considerate their Hokage had been when she designed the soundproof barrier around the small, seemingly harmless-looking house which filled with the echoes of loud cries, shouts, foul curses, mad laughter and crashing sounds as the two shinobis, both regarded as the most professional and responsible among their peers, fell into a frenzied game of tag involving a wooden box, two porn books, bag of ice, two meters of bandage and an unfortunate tea pot.

Chapter Text

"...If I ever, I repeat, ever see or hear that healing bandage being used for something else than patching up your asses I swear I'll make that blond brat a Hokage before he could even blink just so that I could shove those comforters up into those bruised hineys so deep they'll make your throats itch. Do I make myself clear?" The very unwilling muttering ticked off the second last nerve from the owner of the glaring amber eyes as they narrowed further with a promise of a swiftly served knuckle sandwich with all extra toppings. "What?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," came the sullen response.

Tsunade sighed heavily and rubbed her temples. Not that she hadn't expected them to damage either themselves or the house on the very first days, since it was the doom duo they were talking about, but never before had she wished so much to still be a detached kunoichi who had nothing to do with her village.

Then she could kill these two on the spot.

These two, who were dragged to the terrace from their futons by a firm hold on their ears the instant their leader had had a good glimpse of what seemed to be the remnants of an impromptu game of tag apparently modified with bits from hide and seek and dodge ball. Seeing the splintered remains of a small wooden box on the training room's floor and two neatly cut halves of a tea pot being embed into the ceiling, not to mention the condition of the healing bandage the ANBU found from the flooded bathroom, was all the inspiration for her to give the sleeping shinobis a bit harsher wake-up call than she had intended to.

Although she never had thought that the two of her finest shinobis could look so utterly miserable and adorable at the same time as both the silver and brown heads hung down in shame and the men hid further inside their comforters they had managed to hold on during the nasty awakening. Iruka had a big bruise on his temple which was half-covered by a hilariously tousled bush of brown hair sticking to all possible directions and another smaller one decorating his furiously blushing cheekbone, whereas Kakashi's lower part of the face may really need a mask if the two bruises on his forehead and a swollen masked cheek were anything to go by. The men were disgruntled, humiliated, ashamed and the red and slightly swollen right ears of both men that were still carrying the imprints of her fingers gave the grand finishing touch on the rather exquisite sight.

A sight which proved to be a bit too much for her at seven a.m.

The men gave wary glances towards their leader who leaned back as sudden loud guffaws shook her frame and furthermore provided the two men a rather disturbing view on how bouncy can two scantily covered mounds of flesh really be when given the right impulse. Iruka leaned carefully a bit closer to the other man and looked at Kakashi while his hands moved quickly and discreetly in the shinobi field short hand.

She snapped. We should run.

If you think you can outrun a snapped sannin then you're in a way fitter condition than I have seen so far, sensei.

If I leave you as a sacrifice then I just might, bastard.

Maa, maa, that's not nice.

...Did you just sign 'maa, maa' to me?

Created them myself. Nifty, neh?

You've created a sign for it?!

As you apparently have refined your signs to withhold extra exclamation marks. Please don't ever teach Gai that. The constant thumb-upping is enough.

"What are you two signing so eagerly over there?" The half-annoyed voice made them both snap their hands back underneath the folds of their blankets, since there was no telling what Tsunade might do to them if she managed to catch their wrists, injured subordinates or not. They both valued their hands and fingers in order to continue in their profession. Not that it had stopped Kakashi from twisting Iruka's wrists couple of times in the middle of their game the previous evening, nor preventing Iruka from creating an impressive (and surprisingly painful) knot with the healing bandage on copy-nin's middle fingers before unleashing a freezing hell down the pale man's neck.

Kakashi will never again flip off at the teacher without having either a thick wall of steel or Ibiki between them.

The ANBU who grunted from the work of patching up the damaged wall seemed to agree with him.

"Now then, the threats and scolding aside. I saw you two have given your samples and they're all in the fridge." Tsunade stood up and stepped over to Kakashi's other side and sat down. She peeled the comforter off the man and gave his form an examining look. "Did you follow the instructions? Do the seals work?"

"Yes, we followed the book, Tsunade-sama," Iruka answered while he looked curiously at their leader who poked tentatively one rather sizable bruise on the jounin's upper arm and was watching the masked face for any pained winces. Then she started to scan the ex-ANBU's body with her hands to see where to start the healing.

"The seals seem to work fine as well, Hokage-sama," Kakashi nodded, albeit a bit ticked from the poking. "At least neither of us has collapsed due to chakra depletion, eh, sensei?" He turned to give a small amused glance at his counterpart. The ripe plum tone looked rather fetching on the man in the morning glow.

"..Indeed, Hatake-san," Iruka muttered and turned his narrowed eyes to look at the silently cursing ANBU who had finished his repair works on the training room's walls and doors and was currently trying to clean up the mess they've made. It seemed that those tea pot halves were quite efficiently stuck to the ceiling and the teacher was pretty sure that those weren't the correct hand signs for getting them down either.

Unfortunately, by turning his head he drew the attention of the amber eyes briefly to himself.

"...My, my. I knew you are at it like cats and dogs but to really use your claws and teeth, Kakashi-kun? I didn't know you fight so dirty when there's no chakra to rely on," Tsunade tutted as her eyes took a mischievous and lecherous glint in them. The instant Kakashi's head snapped back to look at Iruka the teacher slapped his hand to cover the teeth marks as the fierce red blush took over his cheeks and the neck he had already forgotten to pay any attention to, since he had been very tired and further mangled when they had hit the beds the previous night.

The feel of an intensive gaze boring into his figure made an unexpected heat rise rapidly within the chuunin's body.

"...Maa, you know how feisty our sensei can be, Hokage-sama. He has impressive fangs when one gets him to show them, you know," Kakashi drawled in amused manner, the man being obviously far too eager to attend his own funeral.

The burning look he received by the even more so narrowed dark eyes did wonders to one's self-preservation instincts, and after a fleeting moment Kakashi realized he had unconsciously tucked his nether regions under the much thicker folds of his blanket. Good that Tsunade was there to heal them, he might then be only half-dead after the passionate sensei was through with him.

"...I'll make some tea and coffee, Hokage-sama," the irritated teacher said calmly and stood up and out from beneath his comforter before limping to the kitchen with all the dignity his flaring temper could pull together for it while his hand was still firmly clutching the patch of skin on his red neck.

Tsunade gave a soft snort and Kakashi felt her to start healing his right shoulder blade. "How are you doing with him beside pissing him off constantly?"

"Maa, that we do quite equally, you know. That man is evil."

"He's also a highly needed shinobi, who you're not allowed to break."

"Well he seems quite eager to do that to me, with all due respect. He stole my books again yesterday, so basically I was more than entitled to take them back by force, thus I'm not the one at fault here," Kakashi huffed and for the second Tsunade wondered if that was indeed a whine she heard. Then an amused chuckle found its way to the woman's lips.

"I thought there wouldn't be anything left in you to get broken, brat."

"Hey! That's harsh, Hokage-sama," Kakashi could feel an indignant flush appear on his thankfully masked cheeks. He may act like an overly professional and unhealthily cold and detached know-it-all asshole or an all-around-pervert frequently when accompanying certain people, moreover a certain anal firecracker, but that didn't mean he was all foreign to friendly treatment.

The barely swallowed snort from the training room spoke volumes.

"I still need him so keep that killing intent at bay." Tsunade's sharp order snapped Kakashi out of his sudden homicidal urges and instead of disemboweling some black-ops and serving the dish out of the irritating porcelain mask he slowly turned to look at the firm hand holding his right arm in place and then at his body that was healed for the most part. He felt his ribs and shoulders and turned his head from one side to other, noting that it didn't hurt as much anymore.

"Huh. Thank you, Tsunade-sama. Though why not heal all the injuries?" He asked as he took note on all the places that still hurt considerately. That fourth vertebra on his spine really liked to remind him of his past missions.

"That would defeat the goal of this mission. That's why." Tsunade sat a bit away from him on his other side and folded Iruka's comforter in order to sit on it. Kakashi had a fleeting thought that the temperamental sensei may have an opinion or two about people who sat on his property without asking first, even if he used it only temporarily, but decided to see what the day had yet to offer. Plus being a killjoy was also acting against the well-known unwritten protocol of Konoha jounin, and Kakashi wasn't one to violate the sacred packs.

Tsunade gave a brief look at the backyard and the fence surrounding it, the wooden wall casting a long shadow towards the house in the slowly brightening morning light. "If I would heal all your wounds then your bodies would be deceived to think that you could continue like you used to. It's important for this mission to really train both your body and mind in order to honestly see if you slowly develop new fighting styles or improve yourselves otherwise on some levels. Biting someone's neck may not be the most civil and smoothest way to start doing it, but as long as you two stay alive I'll just let you do what you want." Kakashi didn't like that hidden layer of amusement in the woman's voice. Clearly that wasn't all she had wanted to say and he as sure as hell wasn't feeling suicidal enough to ask about it as he heard the faint footsteps approach from the direction of their kitchen.

"Here you go, tea for two and coffee for the canine." Iruka set the small tray between himself and the other two. As Iruka eased himself down on the wooden floor, Kakashi noticed the teacher had gone and healed his gnawed neck on his own. No wonder it took him time to make the drinks. The moment when Iruka noticed Tsunade sitting on his blanket, Kakashi saw a rapidly forming scowl on the tan face which just as quickly faded back into a calm-looking mask. Apparently the teacher was good at hiding his thoughts when he chose to, as well as the jounin who chose to be completely aloof in social situations when it suited him best. After all the months of more or less ambivalently forming camaraderie, the men still seemed to offer surprises to one another. No wonder the jounin still loitered around the academy teacher, and Kakashi had to admit that the chuunin may have filled a hollow spot or two with his fiery presence. Which was something he'll never even imply to the well-known tyrant of the mission room, even though the blushes that the thought action may cause would make up for getting punched through the nearest wall, window or desk. Or all of them if the floor planning fit the moment. The smooth voice caught his attention and Kakashi turned his eye from the fence wall to the other two persons sitting with him in the morning light.

"I do have a few questions concerning this mission, though. Why do we actually need to take the blood samples, Tsunade-sama? I thought it was the use of chakra and our fighting we were supposed to monitor, not our metabolism." Iruka ever so smoothly offered Kakashi his coffee while at the same time his other hand discreetly turned the small tray just so that Tsunade couldn't detect any foul play as she concentrated on the teacher's words. Kakashi, however, took his time to find the reason for the odd gesture, and noted that the other cup's tea was just a hint more yellow than springy green. So the man had misbrewed the other cup which he had intended first to drink himself. For the ones not knowing any better it wouldn't have been such a big deal, but Kakashi had learned that on Iruka's scale offering badly brewed tea was equivalent of announcing a war, and the copy-nin had to inhale his coffee's aromas fervently for a second to push away the bubbling chortle that was trying very hard to push through his nose and mouth.

If he ever needed an expert on subtle warfare tactics he knew where to look.

Tsunade took the tea Iruka offered her and gave it a long sniff with a satisfied sigh. Kakashi amused himself by watching how the dark, slender brow rose ever so lightly on the otherwise unreadable face before the chuunin busied himself with his own cup while casting a brief, dark and efficiently silencing look over the porcelain edge at the lightning user sitting across him. Kakashi gave a soft hum and winked happily at the glaring man. That chuunin really seemed to have more than five senses in him.

"It actually does concern your metabolism, Iruka-sensei." Tsunade's musing words snatched their attention and they turned to look at the surprisingly concentrated-looking Hokage. She took a small sip of her tea and swirled the liquid in the small cup. "Since there's only one record I found on this training method it isn't said that it wouldn't have nasty side effects on shinobi who try it. I know you two have been using a similar method before this, but it has always lasted only for a few hours, as this on the other hand will last for the whole month. I need to be able to detect all possible threats there might be for your metabolism and hormonal functions in order to stop this experiment from backfiring badly if it ever should come to that. That's why I have to keep an eye on you."

"What side effects would you mean, Tsunade-sama?" Iruka's eyebrows rose slightly at the woman's words, he had never even considered that their training seals could still do some damage after he so carefully created them to suit the methods they used. Had he still missed some crucial details on them?

"Basically everything at this point. That's why it's also good that you two have been training together before, since I need you to also monitor one another beside yourselves. If the other shows any signs of something being wrong, contact either me or Shizune immediately. The ANBU have been informed about this mission so they also have a direct communication channel to you if you can't reach anybody else. You will not delay contacting me, no matter how insignificant the symptom is, do you understand me, brat?" With that Tsunade gave Kakashi a very strict look.

Kakashi frowned behind his coffee and then turned to stare flatly at the sniggering sensei who desperately tried to hide his grin behind his tea cup. "Exactly why do you specify that order at me only?"

Tsunade gave him the flattest look she usually had reserved for only two other shinobis who were both currently away from the village. "Since you have the pride bigger than your dick and brain combined."

After that it was no use for Iruka to hold his laughter in any longer.

"Take these to the examination room and tell Shizune that I'll join them shortly," Tsunade said with a smile and gave the ANBU the sample box after the nin had finally finished patching up the training house and refilling the kitchen cupboards and fridge with food. The ANBU nodded at her and with a small salute he vanished. Tsunade turned to look at the double trouble who were watching her by the front door, both in seemingly better shape than in the early morning after being healed for the most parts.

"Is there something else on your minds that you'd want to discuss before I leave?" She looked at the book that had appeared in Iruka's hands and then the hesitant looks she received. Her lips tilted into a small smile. "You tried to open the seals in the book, didn't you?"

"Ah, well..when you put it that way, Hokage-sama..." Iruka ducked his head and scratched at his scar with a sheepish smile. "I just noticed that there was something strange about it and, well, may have spent a moment or two figuring it out." The silent snicker behind his back turned into a pained hiss as his heel found the silver-bastard's toes. Jounin and their infamous reflexes his ass, even Udon could have dodged from that assault point.

"I suggest that you won't worry yourselves with those seals, they're thoughtfully designed to meet your needs when the correct moment comes. Just follow its instructions and try to remember performing the stretches, your shoulders were stiffer than they should be. If you can do taijutsu then you should be able to manhandle each other as well without trying to kill the other all the time. And for kami's sake mind the house, otherwise I'll have you both sleep in a very, very crammed tent for the rest of the month." She could feel her lips stretch into a playful smirk at the scandalized looks on the two men. It seemed that the brat had still vivid memories of his mission with Asuma a few months ago, since she could think no other explanation for the haunted look in the usually arrogant one eye. Shinobi or not, they were still like kids when it came to the basics of reward and punishment. Something to remember in days to come.

"Yes, Hokage-sama," came the hasty mutual response.

"Good. Let me know whenever there's anything troubling you. You know where to find me." With that she turned and waved casually before exiting the front gate of the house, leaving the pair of shinobi stand by the door in thoughtful silence. After a moment it was Kakashi to turn his eye to the darker man next to him who was once again examining the small book.

"Iruka-sensei?"

"Hmm?"

"You do realize that we've just had an audience with the Hokage while wearing nothing else than sweaty, torn tank tops and dirty boxers?"

The dark eyes cast a brief look at their demeanor.

"...Get the bells ready, Kakashi-san."

They observed each other from across the training room. The dark eyes eyed the pale frame for a moment before Iruka leaned down and dashed to the side before rounding the older man in hopes for reaching his goal before the man caught up with his plan. Kakashi smirked under his mask and danced away from the snatching hands, keeping his glinting prize safely away from those wicked fingers. Then the older man stopped, took Iruka's hand, spun around and threw the teacher over his shoulder. Iruka grunted on the hard impact with the tatami mat and jerked his hand away from the other's hold only to be pinned to the floor by two knees slamming on his shoulders. Kakashi smiled from above and gracefully leaned over the teacher's body in order to take what was his.

Iruka growled and used the sudden change of his position for his advantage as he suddenly pulled his legs over his stomach and plunged them against Kakashi's chest. The copy-nin managed to lessen their impact by putting his hands between on time but the unorthodox kick was still efficient enough and sent him falling on his side. Iruka freed himself from underneath the older man and scrambled on his knees before the awaited fist came sailing through the air towards him. The teacher managed to take a hold on the hand and block the other as well, and once again the men found themselves immersing in a staring competition.

After a while Iruka realized that the inventive prick had slowly added his body weight on him and was leaning quite heavily against his hold. His arms were already trembling under the added weight and the teacher could see the smug, victorious glint in that gray eye. In one swift movement Kakashi pushed his body forward while yanking his hands free and reversing their hold as he all but forced the hastily retreating chuunin beneath him on the floor, pinning the man once again with his one hand and putting him into a rather agonizing position with the tanned legs bent under the lean body. He snatched the bell and gave the panting teacher a smirk.

"Gotcha, sensei."

The eye-roll was all he got for his troubles.

"Want some asparagus to go with the fish?"

"Sure," Kakashi said and took the offered greens in order to prepare them to be boiled. Iruka took a taste of the glazing before he offered the other man a spoonful as well and shifted his eyes to look elsewhere while the older nin tasted the flavor.

"I never would've thought that ANBU delivered groceries as well," the chuunin chuckled at the memory of the slightly awkward-looking elite stocking up their kitchen.

"You'd be surprised, sensei. ANBU doesn't flinch when it comes to mundane tasks. I've even done a hefty amount of D-ranks myself back when I was younger." Kakashi smiled a little at those memories, although being a little pain in the ass for his peers was also one reason why he ended up with lots of tasks involving old ladies and babysitting the noble children in times without assassinations or other dangerous missions. But then again, he learned many new skills from those bland missions, such as how to peel and chop vegetables. Furthermore without a kunai. That was an embarrassing incident for a ten-year-old, and the man rubbed briefly his right thumb as the long forgotten and already vanished wound spot itched irritably.

"Really?" Iruka looked at Kakashi with renewed, albeit not so innocent, curiosity. "You really managed to bend that stiff neck of yours for those jobs?" Iruka knew the man had done quite a lot for his village ever since the destined child prodigy became a genin, but the combination of mundane and Kakashi weren't exactly the first thought factors in any equations within the boundaries of the Fire Country, and he was quite sure it applied with the rest of the countries as well. The Bingo Book would never be the same if it ever came down to that, and the chuunin couldn't resist a snicker or two for his spontaneous hypothesis of what it would actually read in the notorious book if all the S-class secrets came open, and in his mind seeing the book with an image of the infamous copy-nin wearing a white apron with paw prints didn't do much to lessen the hilarity of his current thoughts.

"For your information, 'The pain of thousand years' has other variations too," came the calm notification, and the teacher knew when to re-check one's safety measures. Thus he also knew perfectly well when to go down all the way.

"Then how would you like the rice this time, wifey?"

"Alright, good...can you make it bend just a bit more?"

He assumed the grunt was the meant reply to him. He took a firmer hold both onto the tan shoulder with his hand and on the tan arm with the other and bent the arm back as slowly as he could while he observed Iruka as the man tried to stay put. The sounds of noon echoed over the fence and circled the silent pair who stood in the backyard, the empty plates and glasses forgotten on the terrace.

Kakashi gave a small squeeze on the slightly tensing shoulder and Iruka nodded amidst his deep breathing. He felt the muscles twitch and then settle again under his hand and the masked jounin nodded to himself before bending the arm further back. A quiet hiss escaped his counterpart's lips and they stood still for a moment before Kakashi slowly brought the arm back to the chuunin's side and took a hold on the other shoulder and the quietly offered arm.

"Ready, sensei?"

"I wonder how long it'll actually take for our bodies to adjust in this situation," Iruka thought aloud while putting the washed dishes back into the cupboards.

"I'd guess it'll happen either tomorrow or the day after. Although we're trained shinobi so basically it should happen even today, but I dare to doubt it since yesterday the muscles were in bad shape and we still ended up pushing them too far," Kakashi answered by the terrace door and held the silver bells in his hand. The gray eye scanned the hustling figure that moved in their kitchen and Kakashi was quite pleased to note that Iruka was in higher spirits than the previous day. Even though he wasn't sure if that was such a good thing, since during their acquaintance he had learned the warning signs of a beaming Umino as well the more or less safe distances that needed to be taken then if one wanted to have all their appendages still attached on their bodies.

Iruka wiped his hands clean and then stepped to take the bell from the other man before they went to the training room. They attached the bells on their sweatpants and stretched their backs and legs curtly. As Kakashi finished his stretches Iruka had already set the timer and the dark brown eyes were gazing him keenly. The ex-ANBU gave a nod and made the first move.

In an instant Kakashi was over the younger man, chasing him around the room as he made attempts on the bell. They both knew the first few minutes were plainly just for warming up but that didn't stop them from having fun all the way. Iruka slapped the quick hands away, stood abruptly in front of Kakashi, nose to nose, and blew a small puff of air into his masked face before aiming a hit at the man's stomach with his accurate fist. Kakashi blocked the fist with his hands and Iruka pulled away from him before he surged again at him, the dark-haired man obviously going for the ex-ANBU's blind spot. Kakashi spun around and sent the teacher staggering past him, then took hold of one arm, yanked the teacher back and threw him over his shoulder once again. Iruka recovered quickly amidst his travel over the pale body, twisted his own body into the right angle and landed gracefully on his feet. The chuunin then nimbly reversed their grips joining their hands and pulled the older nin down as he used the man as a leverage to pull himself up. Kakashi resisted the strong pull as well as he could and yanked his hand away as soon as the teacher had stood back up before the man would use their joined hands further against him. Iruka instantly made several sharp jabs at Kakashi's bell, the concentration burning in his dark brown eyes for Kakashi's delighted note, and the older man was more than thrilled to give the other a good challenge. He blocked, attacked and chased the younger shinobi, all the while keeping an eye on the other. After last night's conversation he felt a bit confused, to be completely honest, since he couldn't understand Iruka's train of thought. Why would anybody approach someone they were afraid of? What was in Kakashi that Iruka was afraid of?

"You're spacing out, Kakashi-san. Should we stop for a moment?" The slightly worried, smooth voice snapped his thoughts back to the present and he realized that Iruka had taken him into an impressive hold from behind his back, keeping a firm grip on the pale hands crossed over Kakashi's stomach on the dark gray sleeveless singlet. The man hadn't touched the silver bell just inches away from his fingers, though. Pays off to play with a teacher; dirty tricks weren't allowed if the counterpart hadn't been fully present in the situation. Kakashi turned his head in order to give a reassuring wink at the chuunin over his shoulder.

"Maa, you're just taking so long that I decided to take a nap. Miscounted the morning tea dose for being so sluggish, sensei?"

That man sure could sizzle. Iruka snarled, tightened his grip all around the man and for a moment Kakashi could count his ribs with each passing second as they wailed under the iron hold. The jounin struggled and wriggled against the hold while he tried to keep his lower body safely away from those again active fingers reaching for the red thread. Suddenly he noticed being roughly manhandled against a wall with a loud thump, accompanied by a slightly amusing feeling of déjà vu, and he felt Iruka let go of his other hand while the chuunin pressed his body heavily against the older man in obvious hopes for keeping the bastard still enough to get the bell from him.

A fatal mistake.

Kakashi took hold of the reaching hand, stepped promptly on Iruka's foot and with the sliver of space created by his actions between him and the wall, he pulled his other hand up against the wall and all but pushed them away from it. Then he spun around on his heels while he twisted the captured hand behind Iruka's back as the other man suddenly found himself being pulled around and then forced against the same wall face first. Iruka's free hand succeeded to cover his precious bell before the pale fingers could lay themselves on it, and the men stilled for a moment, both panting and sweating due to the day's activities.

"How do you enjoy the architecture, sensei?" Kakashi mused next to a tanned ear.

"Fuuff off, Kakshhsaff."

"Maa, didn't quite catch that. Care to repeat?" A low, dangerous mixture of growling and muffled cursing reached his perked ears. Interesting. "This would be a good time to wash that dirty mouth of yours. Shame that I can't do any jutsus now. But-", he leaned closer to the struggling man, "you've already made a bad mistake by letting me get behind your back so easily. Way too easily, in fact." He pressed his body further against his captive, pressed his thighs against the other set and felt the hands between their bodies squeeze further against the chuunin's back and his abdomen and the hands against the wall having more pressure on them while his brain worked on wondering what the other had in mind after getting caught so effortlessly. They had still ten minutes left, which was puzzling for Kakashi since usually the chuunin had lasted way longer than now. It was too easy.

Kakashi knew better to dislike things being too easy.

He ducked his head closer to the other's neck and for a second his eyes gazed over the dark skin that just a few hours ago had his teeth marks on it. "What are you up to, sensei?" He wondered half-aloud, feeling something stir in his gut.

The thick silence that suddenly hung on them wasn't helping at all.

"...Saa, is getting lost in the road of life so bad, Kakashi-san?" Iruka had slowly managed to dislodge his mouth from the ill-tasting wall, and Kakashi frowned on the foreign tone of the usually mellow voice. Then he caught the cunning look in the chuunin's eyes and knew that he really did know better.

That little minx was playing time.

Iruka smirked, pushed his hips forcefully against Kakashi's other hand still trapped between the chuunin and the wall as his captured hand behind his back had subtly weaved its way towards the price on Kakashi's hips when the older man hadn't payed enough attention to it. The red thread snapped off as Kakashi jerked his hand from around the teacher and thus moved his body sharply in the process before he realized what had happened. The chuunin turned around with his one hand still caught in the jounin's grip and leaned his back against the wall with a smug smirk on his lips as the small silver bell dangled from his fingers in his hand that was held between them. His victory didn't last long, though, and the smirk fell as the teacher started to realize there to be an empty space beneath his hand that was still clutched on his hip.

Kakashi raised his hand and gave him a wide smirk as the lost bell emerged from his closed fist and dangled in the air in a mockingly same style as chuunin held his bell. The deep, annoyed blush was well worth the stunt.

Iruka rolled his eyes at the annoying genius but couldn't help as a bit wider smile found its way on his lips. He sighed and dropped the bell to his opponent's waiting hand before straightening up and dislodging his hand from the pale one.

"Care for a short break, Kakashi-san? I could kill for a tea now."

Kakashi heard himself chuckle smoothly at the chosen words. "Best to give you that tea then, sensei."

"Wise decision", the teacher grinned and strolled to the kitchen, leaving one pensive jounin alone in the silent training room.

Iruka pulled the needle out and put the full vial back into the small new sample box they were given before Tsunade left that morning. Then he took the box back into the fridge and as he came back he saw Kakashi attach the sleeve back to his jacket. The chuunin sat down next to the jounin and the sounds of early evening wafted in the air while the empty dishes of the eaten dinner were on a small tray some feet away waiting to be washed as the jounin settled happily to read his daily fix of adult literature and the teacher worked on the seals of the small notebook.

"You'll never get those seals open, you know," an amused voice teased behind the porn.

"Care to make a bet on that, Kakashi-san?"

"Hmm?"

"If I manage to get them open, you'll do something for me. How does that sound?" Iruka turned to give a challenging look at the man laying next to him. The thin travel porn book was lowered and a curious one-eyed look was cast to his direction.

"And what if you lose?"

He hadn't thought of that. The teacher tapped his chin with the book and for a few minutes considered the pros and cons of actually forming a bet with the superior nin. The wages should be equal, so that it would indeed benefit the winner but also it shouldn't be too much for the loser. He raised a brow and gave a small smile at the man next to him. "Is the same deal good for you as well?"

"You mean you doing something for me when I win?"

"In case you win, asshole. Are you in or not?"

The older man hummed in thought for a minute and looked at his porn book with considering air around him, and in that moment the teacher realized that it would have been wise to elaborate on the conditions of the bet. Iruka gave a better look at the older man and his perverted book, and to his surprise for the shortest second he found himself questioning the need to elaborate anything concerning what the other might suggest if he won. The small notebook felt suddenly heavier in his hands and for some reason his cheeks felt as hot as they did when he had healed his neck that morning. Before he knew it, his hand touched the patch of once bitten skin and not for the first time the teacher had to wonder if his teas really were meddled with by someone.

Kakashi looked over at the peculiarly silent man and the silver brows frowned at the troubled look on the chuunin's face. Maybe the teacher was scared that he'd ask something scandalous from him should he win their bet. The passing thought seemed to trigger a synapse or two in his brain and without a second thought the jounin rose slowly to sit up as his muscles felt suddenly very restless and unwilling to keep under his brain's command. Iruka stirred slightly as the man apparently sensed his presence near him and the tension that had once vanished between them was back in an instant.

In a blink of an eye one particularly loud cry about Spring and Youth cut through the air, shattering the strange ambiance that had fallen on them once again as they both fell immobile and silent as the dead while they waited with baited breaths for the imminent appearance of the person they hadn't missed a day after starting the mission. After a moment they glanced at each other in shocked awe as the demon in garish green against all odds seemed to have moved away to a safe distance from the fence, and they released the breaths they had held on reflex. Then the breaths turned into chuckles, then into an outright laughter, and thus they were both quite happy about the fact that they couldn't be heard nor seen from the street at that particular moment as they both gasped for air desperately and fell on their backs on the hard wood of the terrace.

"That..now, that..was..!" Kakashi panted and tried to grasp on the words escaping his hysteric mind. Not that the very red-faced chuunin was any helpful on that matter.

"That, that...oh, kami, I love you, Hokage-sama! Thank you!" Iruka shouted in the air and gave a mighty whoop with an enthusiastic fist pump, reminding the jounin about the blonde genin who was currently traveling somewhere with a perverted toad and whose reaction to ramen was remarkably similar as the sensei's in question. Kakashi lifted his hand amidst his panting and Iruka gave him a high-five while they both grinned like maniacs.

Never had they thought it possible to have a month with no stress of constantly failing to outrun the all too loud green man notoriously well-known for thumbs, challenges and shiny teeth.

"So, are you game then, sensei?"

Iruka looked at the shadow of the other man on the wall and raised a brow. "Am I game?"

"You know, the bet you wanted us to take," Kakashi shrugged and folded the pants on his bed before tying the towel around his waist in order to remove his boxers. Not that he was a prude, or anything even close to that word, but for some vain reason he actually preferred not to let the dark-haired pain in his pale ass see his current boxer briefs with tiny shurikens on them.

The resulting teasing would be endless.

"Oh, that. Well, do you accept the wages?" Iruka asked and took off his hair band before stepping to the corridor while wearing only his towel. The older man was already wearing his shower mask as he stepped to the corridor as well and followed the teacher to the bathroom.

"Why not, it does sound interesting enough. Besides, you have the whole month to work on the book, or at least until the last one pops, so we even have a proper time limit for it. Plus it'll give me more time to read my books in peace when you struggle with them instead of commenting on my reading material all the time," the jounin mused while they took off their towels and headed for the shower stalls with the stained glass wall between them.

Iruka snorted and rolled his eyes as he turned the faucets. "If you think a few seals will keep this chuunin's mouth shut about your dirty books then you have another thing coming, jounin-san."

"Then I'll just have to use one of those seals to shut you up, don't I, sensei?" Came the equally sly answer from the other side of the glass wall. "Maybe just taping the book against that eager mouth would do the trick, since the wall seemed to work well enough."

"Speaking of which, I hope the ANBU really knew how to patch up a wall since the plaster tasted very weird. Pass the shampoo, will you?" Iruka reached his hand to the other side and got the asked bottle. He took the amount of shampoo he needed and passed the bottle back on the other's side before scrubbing his scalp vigorously and thoroughly. He liked his hair as it was but it was a pain to wash and sort out whenever it chose to tangle into a mess while sparring.

"For some reason I doubt that any ANBU would be twisted enough to try to poison a teacher with wall putty. Although...nope, it would be just me if anybody tried that on you," Kakashi chuckled happily as he washed the slightly dried sweat away from his body. Being mostly on missions that required keeping still in a forest, desert or the mountains in every available crook there was to be used made the simple joys like taking a shower feel like divine luxury for the Sharingan user. Having a clean body was pure bliss.

"I'll keep that in mind the next time I ask for renovation help, might be even wise to give Genma a taste on all the paints and caulks before using them, just to be on the safe side," Iruka smirked widely on his side and gave a sideway glance at the chuckling dark figure behind the glass wall before rinsing himself off and stepping out of the shower. A faint popping sound reached his ears and they both stilled on reflex for a moment. They both knew that sound and knew the implications connected to it as well. Iruka quickly tied the towel he had grabbed on his waist and strode to their bedroom, heading straight to the small notebook that had flopped open on his futon. Of all the things that had been circling in his mind as the possible next task from the book, the tiny object now laying on his linen was beyond his most twisted sense of humor, and that was a lot from a man who was well-acquainted with the craziest nins of the hidden village.

"...Maa. That's..Well," said the slightly confused, low voice behind the teacher by the bedroom doors as he leaned over his bed.

"...You can say that again," Iruka muttered and took the small bottle in his hand to carefully read the label on it while the nauseating feeling of dread settled at the bottom of his stomach.

She had sent them massage oil.

After dressing up, the men had settled in the kitchen to eat their evening snack before hitting the bed. After last night they didn't feel like staying up so long and after a small discussion they deemed their training clothes being so close to be used as chemical warfare that washing them was necessary for the sake of their mission and preserving their sense of smell. So there they stood, both dressed in their dark uniform pants and loose shirts, eating fish sandwiches and drinking their hot drinks while the laundry machine thrummed peacefully beneath the kitchen counter.

All of their thoughts being focused on that damned little bottle placed on a shelf mere twenty feet away behind the bathroom doors.

Kakashi munched on the bite that had been lolling in his mouth for a while now and took a brief look at the bristled man leaning against the counter a couple of feet away and who was seemingly killing his sandwich with every bite before swallowing heavily.

"Maa-"

"Absolutely no."

"Well-"

"I will not, in any circumstances, put some scented body oil on my fellow shinobi and give them a naked full-body rub, Kakashi-san. Especially when the current company is concerned." And with that the copy-nin received a severely pointed look served with a fiery red tinge blooming on the scarred cheeks.

"Maa, what makes you think so badly of me, sensei? Have I ever done something-" Kakashi had never considered the possibility to be so quickly cut off in the middle of the sentence. That look was sharper than any blade swung at his direction during his active career.

"I wonder," came the ominous words from the dark lips and the scowling sensei took a sip from his tea, settling with an even darker look towards the small book that could be seen from the open door to their bedroom. "...Would she notice if-"

"She could always check the amount of the oil."

"But if we'd pour it slowly down the drain."

"I bet that it's chakra-infused. If that's the case then beside being highly effective when used for a massage, it'll also be easier to track in the drain pipes should you pour it down the kitchen sink or in the toilet. Bathroom would be efficient for fooling her, true, but she, with no doubt, has measured the correct usage of the oil per session so pouring too much or too little at once would be suspicious, plus usually it can be smelled or felt in some oils that it has been in contact with skin." As he reasoned further, Kakashi could feel the dark eyes intensify their look on him on each passing second, making it harder to keep his logic straight under the hard scrutiny that has obviously been cultivated to its peak during the years of the younger man's teaching job. The jounin warily turned his gray eye to look at the pair of dark eyes examining him keenly and he felt a nervous smile stretch on his lips. Being an ex-ANBU wasn't a certified get-away card when Iruka was concerned, since the sensei had a very strict sense of serving equally ruthless punishments whenever someone pissed him off, no matter what rank they represented.

"...You really want to have a full-body rub, don't you, pervert."

"A man has his needs."

The sandwich was illegally fast in his opinion.

Chapter Text

As the chilly morning crept over the slumbering Hidden Village of Konoha, and as the ones assigned on the guard duty stretched their sore and stiff muscles while shaking off the condensed morning dew from their gear before setting off to give their reports and then hitting their beds after a long night...

...there sat a seething man on a wooden terrace, who, for the first time in his active chuunin career, was plotting a mutiny against his Hokage.

The dark eyes glared at the yellowish liquid that swirled in his small cup, and for a moment Iruka mused that if he kept on failing with his steeps at the current speed he might as well switch to coffee. That stuff was at least honest with its bad taste. Thinking about the said other beverage brought darker clouds upon his head despite the clear morning sky as his thoughts took a sharp turn towards the small, innocent bottle standing on a shelf few dozen feet away behind the bathroom doors.

Talk about bad taste, indeed.

He had thought that the Hokage would be more considerate with her subordinates.

Sure, they had sore shoulders, stiff backs and their thighs have certainly seen better days, but the oily surprise was rubbing the tan teacher in the wrong way so hard it was nowhere near relaxing. Tsunade knew her shinobis even better than they usually did, so why use that knowledge to make them uncomfortable? As for what Iruka could tell from last night, even Kakashi was slightly miffed from her stunt, even though the man's words told otherwise. The chuunin felt his cheeks heat up at the last sentence the masked pervert had said before things got again out of hands, after which Iruka had to go to sleep with only half of his sandwich filling his stomach.

Damn that jounin and the man's way of getting so effortlessly under his tan skin.

The chuunin gave a long, silent sigh and set his tired eyes to look at the still darkly hued sky that slowly turned lighter in the horizon as the inevitable new day dawned upon his grumpy figure. He took a sip, winced at the bitter taste, sighed yet again and then his eyes caught on the washed laundry that he had folded neatly next to him. Particularly the freshly washed and now dry dark mask placed on top of the clothes, an unfortunate piece of cloth that had to be soaked five times to get the fish-scent out of the fabric [1]. Tentatively, the teacher reached out, took the mask in his hand and ran his thumb on the smooth fabric. He had never thought that the cocky copy-nin, who didn't seem like a man who'd care much about his looks, would use custom made masks of bamboo and silk. Then again, having wool or nylon would be downright idiotic to wear on one's face on daily basis. Having silk was smart and practical, since the fibers were smooth and they breathed enough, not to mention they held humidity and warmth in check in various climate conditions. The bamboo fiber was a good companion for the other for the similar qualities, plus for making the mask stretch and giving enough friction for the fabric to stay on one's face. Nothing less to be expected from the village's infuriating genius.

Did the man have special winter masks, though?

His brooding mood aside, a small, amused snort escaped Iruka at the thoughts of the elite nin doing his shopping in the shinobi supply store. He put down his tea and stretched the mask in his both hands to give it a better look. A small, albeit not so annoyed anymore, frown formed on his face as he took in consideration all the gossips, bets, legends and assumptions he had been unfortunate enough to bump into while working as a shinobi, moreover as a teacher and a mission room paper pusher. Why would people fuss so much over such a tiny piece of cloth? His frown deepened and Iruka took another sip from his ruined tea, noting absently that cooling badly brewed beverages certainly didn't do anything to salvage them, as he realized that ever since they started living under the same roof, he had not once tried to steal a glance at the currently sleeping shinobi's face. Not that there weren't any perfect opportunities presented to him almost frequently during their meals when Kakashi took the mask down to have a bite or a drink before pulling it back up, not to mention while sparring or when they undressed for shower.

Why didn't he fuss over it?

A sound of light snoring caught his ears and Iruka gave a short glance through the terrace doors at their closed bedroom doors. After a moment's listening, he once again concentrated on the cloth in his hands, and before any of his logical brain cells could stop the man and give him a valid reason or five to reconsider the following action, Iruka pulled the mask over his head and on his face. The overly fresh scent of laundry liquid was the first to attack his nostrils and the young man had only a second's time to pull the cloth down from his face before an abrupt sneeze echoed in the otherwise silent backyard. He instantly shot a wary look at the direction of their bedroom, but the jounin's snoring continued without any changes in its pattern and the chuunin felt his shoulders slump slack from their sudden tension. He gave a sniff and rubbed his scarred nose vigorously to make it stop itching before slowly placing the black cloth back on his face. Then he leaned back a little, closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths through the fabric, while noting that the faint scent of morning dew became slightly muffled due to the blocking fibers and his skin prickled a bit for the strange feeling of having something covering it. Then again, if he remembered correctly, Kakashi was said to have a sense of smell good enough to rival his ninken, and Inuzukas for that matter.

Besides, using the mask since childhood had in no doubt made it become like a second skin for the older man.

Carefully, Iruka ran his fingers across his scar that was neatly hidden just under the mask's edge, the fabric retracing almost identically the marred skin underneath it. The coincidental fact had always humored him, since it was something that not many paid any attention to, and for a brief moment the teacher had to wonder if it really was so strange for them two to interact between each other, albeit in a clearly unorthodox manner. As for him not caring about the pervert's face, Iruka could feel a small, lopsided smile find its way on his now masked lips as the reason he already knew came to his mind.

After all, they all wore masks among their peers.

"Black suits you well, sensei."

As the chuunin's masked cheeks reached the whole new degrees of temperature, Kakashi idly wondered if it would be physiologically possible to suffer a self-caused heat stroke, moreover set silk and bamboo on fire through mere skin contact.

Faster than a blink, Iruka brought his hands to his face in order to pull the suddenly scalding mask away from his figure, but two strong hands reached from behind and snatched his hands in a firm grip, thus preventing him from removing the cloth from his face.

"Maa, it seems that I caught myself a naughty chuunin," a low, annoyed voice rumbled next to Iruka's now deep red ear and the following ominous chuckle caused a chilling shudder travel down his spine. Kakashi took both of the tanned wrists into his one hand and the other disappeared from the field of Iruka's vision, thus efficiently increasing the nervousness of the captured academy teacher. "I wonder what sort of punishment would be in order. Any suggestions, sensei?"

Feeling something with thin, sharp edge pressing against one's spine would have made a lesser man beg for mercy by now, and after Iruka recognized the object pressing on his tenth vertebra in an uncomfortable manner, he really wished to have sense enough to act as the lesser man. The teacher swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat and raked his brain in order to form words smart enough to convince the man behind his back that the kitchen utensils had nothing to do with him fooling around with the man's mask, which wasn't even on the bastard's face at that moment for that matter, and they really needed that spatula for making their meals. "...Kakashi-san, I'm, in all my honesty, deeply-"

"Maa, none of that begging, sensei."

The icy silence that followed the sentence took the jounin by surprise, and the menacingly narrowed dark brown eyes that turned to glare at him over his captive's shoulder made Kakashi consider telling the teacher that the man was now playing against the rules.

"...It wasn't begging, you dick, it was an apology. Which you were kind enough to interr-"

"Sounded like begging to me, and trust me, I've heard a lot of that-"

"I did not beg, you ass!"

"Yes you-"

"Can't you distinct an apology from a beg?! What kind of jounin are you? Do you kill people when they say 'I'm sorry', you sadistic idiot?!" Due to his hotly boiling temper and for him having difficulties to see behind his shoulder properly, Iruka missed the darkening of the slowly narrowing gray eye which was gradually gaining the warning signs of rising anger instead of the previous mild annoyance and teasing.

"Maa, I'd watch that tongue of yours, chuu-"

"Shove it!" Iruka was sorry for messing with Kakashi's belongings, he also realized his tongue being way too eager and that their situation was going the wrong way on more than just one level, but as the things currently stood, he was more than ready to murder the man with the unnerving spatula poking at his back before going for a second apology.

Though the passing twitch of the silver brow made him quickly realize that after a few moments there might not even be a mouth nor tongue on him to form an apology with.

Kakashi growled, flung the spatula away, took a hurting hold on the teacher's shoulder with his now free hand and forced the brunette on his side against the terrace floor hard enough to give the man a reason to cry out as his body met the hardwood. Then the jounin pinned the surprised chuunin's legs with his own and in a blink of an eye Iruka felt a rough hand tear the mask off of him and perform an interesting way of making makeshift shackles out of the cloth when the pale hands tied swiftly the now furiously resisting tan wrists together. Iruka cursed and struggled on the floor as he tried to break the bindings around his wrists and kick the legs away from pressing on his calves, making the folded laundry scatter around them in a disarray. Suddenly he felt being yanked back up sitting on his bottom, but the confusion for the older man's plans didn't last long as the next thing Iruka felt were calloused hands that took a painful hold on his ponytail.

Hence, as the first rays of sunlight peeked warily over the fence wall, the darkly humming jounin dragged the yelling and trashing chuunin into the dim training room by a steel grip on the man's hair.

The moment the ex-ANBU introduced the teacher with the philosophy concerning discipline among their ranks, Iruka was certain that he would learn to hate the chime of the silver bells.

The pleasant morning sunlight didn't last long and the sounds of citizens running for nearest shelters could be heard over the fence as the heavy rain poured down from the now dark sky. The raindrops pelted against the roof of the light-gray house, creating their own melody of rhythmic tapping against the worn tiles, as the rain curtain hissed around the city and took its time to form various puddles and mischievous waterfalls flooding the drainpipes and the gutters, thus completely soaking the unfortunate individuals passing down the streets.

Kakashi had always enjoyed the rain. The quiet hiss surrounding him was one of the few sounds that ever had managed to calm him down, despite of usually ending up wet like a drowned rat and shivering from cold bordering the symptoms of hypothermia, but nevertheless, he liked the sound of it. Plus it made the air more humid, which worked like a cleansing filter for his mask, a small luxury which he appreciated greatly after missions in dry conditions.

As for now, the rain gave him something else to concentrate on instead of the unpleasant tension hanging between him and the academy teacher who was nursing the red marks on his wrists while sitting on his futon a good ten feet away from him.

The remnants of their late brunch were forgotten on the tray between them after they had prepared and eaten the food in an uneasy silence, the men avoiding the other's gaze the whole time. Kakashi gave a short glance at the tan man, and seeing the deep frown furrow the usually vivid eyebrows gave his gut a small twist. He didn't mean to beat the man up for the first thing in the morning, if anything he had been planning to enjoy the early morning in the chuunin's good company, but for the life of him he couldn't understand how the hell the shit had hit the fan so thoroughly before he even managed to get his morning coffee. He had gotten unexpectedly riled up for seeing the man wear his mask without asking first, and the following flow of insults from that sharp tongue had hit the last nerve to make Kakashi see red.

A dark cloud passed his mind as he remembered the spatula that was still embedded to the wall. Being a genius was apparently restricted to actions performed after his first dose of caffeine.

He did know that the teacher didn't mean half of the things his mouth spitted out, but the unusually bitter tone in them had been the trigger for Kakashi to lose his temper. But, after the copy-nin had managed to calm down and analyze their brief yelling exercises for a minute, he realized that Iruka had sounded very reluctant with his words as well. As if the man had been wanting to yell at someone else than him.

The ex-ANBU had a good idea on who that particular individual was.

A small, awkward clearing of a throat made Kakashi look back at the face that was no longer disgruntled, but ashamed. Iruka turned his head to give a careful glance at Kakashi's direction and the jounin raised a challenging brow at the indecisive annoyance that momentarily swirled in the dark eyes.

He really could live without the second shouting match for that morning.

"...I'm sorry," came the quiet murmur from the dark lips and the silver brow rose a bit more to meet the blush that tinged the scarred cheeks. The chuunin took a deep breath, apparently to pull himself together, and opened his eyes for a straighter look at the narrow dark gray eye that was watching him. "I'm sorry for putting your mask on, Kakashi-san. I shouldn't have done it, it was against the protocol, very unprofessional, and furthermore violated your privacy. I'm also sorry for shouting rude things at you." With those words Iruka sat on his knees, turned to face the now utterly baffled copy-nin, and, to Kakashi's complete surprise, proved some of jounin's opinions on him wrong in the most unexpected manner. "I'm deeply sorry for my misbehavior. Please accept my apology, jounin-san," the mellow voice worded out as the teacher bowed his head to the mattress.

The sound of rain was for a moment the only sound heard in the house as the jounin stared at the atoning chuunin. Then a thought came to the older nin and he patiently waited as the blushing teacher straightened his back and cast him a wary look. A look which took a turn into a flight-or-fight reflex crossing the tan features as Kakashi directed a bright smile at the chuunin and put away his empty coffee mug. Then the jounin turned to face the man properly and pointed his finger at the fidgeting teacher. "Give me your hairband."

Of all the things that could have left the masked mouth, that request was the last to expect for Iruka. Hesitantly, he reached with his hands to his already bristled and abused ponytail, which still gave small stings of pain to his scalp from the slightest touch, and directed a doubting look at the still smiling man.

"Questioning your superior again, chuunin?" The warning was clear in the man's voice.

Iruka gritted his teeth and pulled off his hairband, his other hand offering the small band of rubber for the jounin as the other held his hair up for the time being. Kakashi lifted himself up from his futon and scooted closer to the chuunin who had to resist his instincts telling him to take the equal amount of scoots backwards. The jounin took the band from the tan fingers and cast a stern look at him.

"Let your hair down, sensei."

"...Kakas-"

"You used your fellow shinobi's personal belongings without permission, insulted your colleague with foul language and yet you still dare to oppose a direct order? Do you teach your students to act the same way, sensei?" Kakashi's sharp and strict voice cut down the teacher's objection, which was an unnecessary reminder from the previous time Iruka had heard the man use the same tone on him. Half an hour ago, to be precise. With fists and feet for emphasis.

Swallowing down the forming storm rivaling the one raging through their village at that moment, Iruka gave a surrendering sigh. This was a fight he had lost from the start, and he didn't feel like starting a new one either. While closing his eyes he let go of his hair, feeling it descent over his neck and shoulders, and he already wanted to have it back in its rightful bindings when the first stray locks tickled his cheekbones. He gave a grumpy look at the man sitting in front of him, but the foreign glint in the gray eye silenced the words on his tongue. After a fleeting silence, Kakashi stretched the rubber band with his fingers, dipped his head, and caused nearly a half of Iruka's brain to short-circuit.

When the copy-nin straightened back up, the stunned look of utter disbelief on the scarred man's features made his closed eyelid twitch with an urge to memorize the sensei's face with his Sharingan. But, against the current desire, he chose to close his both eyes in happy crescents as a wide grin stretched on his masked lips, and, as he reckoned that for the first time, for once, he didn't have hair tickling his face, he now understood why the teacher was so fond of having his hair up all the time. "Eye for an eye, neh?"

While the made question flew unheard past his ears, Iruka was beyond words. Not many minutes ago he was introduced with the cruelty of a pissed off jounin applying all his training on his fellow shinobi, the man not caring if the used methods slipped occasionally to ANBU's torture antics as long as his prey was breathing, dodging and running. Now, as his wide eyes stared at the silvery mane being tamed into a small, pointy, spiky, perky tuft of a ponytail wiggling on top of the head of one of the most dangerous assassins ever recorded in the books of living legends, the teacher had never before been so thankful to possess a memory better than the average nin's.

Then his eyes landed back on the man's dark gray eye staring expectantly at him.

After the brief exchange of looks, Iruka's eyes traveled further to see the whole upper half of the man's face without the silver hair blocking the view. He could now clearly see the vertical scar cross the other eyelid which hid the famous red eye, he could see the bare forehead that was shielding the genius mind behind it, and suddenly he couldn't understand why others wasted their time on fussing over the masked lower half of the pale face since the upper half was a sight to behold on its own accord, and it was right there for him to be looked at properly. "...The perky tail suits you, Kakashi-san."

The thunderstruck look in the gray eye froze the blood in the chuunin's veins, and being utterly mortified to hear his own voice to carry out such things, Iruka slapped his hand on his mouth to prevent any more of similar thoughts leaving his lips unchecked. As the gaze of the dark gray eye didn't seem to leave his panicking figure, the chuunin started to count the amount of steps and dodges he needed in order to reach for the breakfast tray to knock the man unconscious if it came to that.

For the complete lack of ideas on how things should go from there, a sudden chortle burst out from the masked lips as Kakashi felt an uncontrollable laughter bubble through his body at the other man's shocked face. He felt tears gather in his eyes and he held desperately on his hurting sides while the abrupt, violent guffaws shook him to the very bone. To his surprise, what his downfall did cause wasn't a renewed yelling session with the easily embarrassed sensei, but an accompanying sound of disbelieving, bright waves of laughter that flowed into his ears. He managed to clear his eye enough to witness how Iruka, behind his mussed curtain of brown hair, laughed loud and hard while the man tried to wipe his eyes clear from the tears and seemed to try desperately cover his deeply blushing face at the same time. The tensed aggression the jounin had sensed on the other ever since the last night seemed to have vanished from the man, for which Kakashi was happy, and for what he wished to find other means to release instead of giving the teacher a new set of bruises.

The rain poured down even heavier than before and the citizens of Konoha cursed at the brisk storm winds that penetrated their thick layers of clothing and chilled them to the bones, but the ambiance between the two men now left panting for air in the bedroom was once more a tad bit warmer and lighter than moments ago.

"..Maa..apology accepted, Iruka-sensei."

The small bell chimed on his right side and Iruka leaped away from the kicking feet that narrowly missed their target. Determined to go in for the kill, Kakashi grunted and took a few quick steps to catch up with the escaping prey before swinging his leg once more at the chased chuunin. Iruka skidded to a halt the moment he sensed the other next to his body and dodged down on his knees, the sensei letting the kicking leg swing way past over his ponytail, while taking a good hold on the man's other knee with his hands, thus making the man buckle under his own weight as his knee was suddenly yanked from under him. Kakashi landed on his back with a grunt and for the fleeting second the dark eyes locked with the lone gray as Iruka leaned on top of his opponent, the nimble hands already tracing the red thread attached to the man's sweats.

Suddenly Iruka noticed an arm grab his frame from behind and felt his body being pulled over the older man and rolled under the other's body as the ever so clever copy-nin switched their positions to his advantage. Kakashi sat on his heels and took a firm hold onto Iruka's jaw before hoisting the man with him up on his feet, shoved the other a few feet back and then heard the pleasing sounds of his punches making contact seven times with the sweaty skin.

Iruka gave a strangled cough as the air left him, and he barely managed to block the eight and ninth punch sailing at his direction. Then he collected the rest of his adrenaline, took a good hold onto one pale wrist, spun around and threw the older nin over his shoulder.

What he didn't expect was for the older man to land gracefully back on his feet, turn around and give him a sharp blow to his midriff with straightened fingers. Heaving for breath, Iruka fell on his other knee and then felt a leg kick him square on his shoulder, thus making him fall on his back on the floor. Kakashi scooped down to collect the bell from his defeated opponent and then sat down next to the panting man, he himself feeling out of breath as well. The seals were indeed working, it has been a while for him to feel tired after what was only the fourth match.

Slowly, Iruka picked himself up from the floor and plopped down next to his counterpart. As they sat on the matted floor while gathering their breaths for the following stretches, he gave a look at his once again snatched bell resting on the other's hand. "They've come a long way, haven't they."

The dark gray eye turned to look at the pensive chuunin and then back at the bell, the older man nodding briefly at the question. "Indeed they have. A rather fool proof method, one could say," Kakashi said as he ran his thumb on the smooth metal surface. "Even Naruto paid attention when we sparred with these."

A bright chuckle was heard from his side and Kakashi noticed Iruka shaking his head in amused manner. Then the teacher gave him a toothy grin. "Don't tell me you're comparing me to him, Kakashi-san. I like ramen, granted, but I would prefer to think that I still have more sense in my head than that little demonic whirlwind."

For that Kakashi couldn't help but offer the man a similar, cheesy grin. "Takes one to raise one, eh, sensei?"

Apparently the teacher didn't need the stretches before the fifth round.

"This actually fits me quite well, Kakashi-san."

"Hm?" The dark dray eye glanced up from the syringe.

"This form of training," Iruka said and took off one of the thermal trouser legs in order to give his sample. "I mean, I'm usually highly aware of my chakra reserves, especially when facing a stronger opponent, and I've noticed that it affects my fighting from time to time," the darker man continued while he observed his blood fill the small vial, "but now there's less hesitation in my actions as I fight nearly without chakra. Of course knowing that you're in the same situation does affect that, but-"

"But now you don't have to remind yourself constantly about your remaining chakra, so you can concentrate solely on your combat tactics."

"Exactly. Stop ending my sentences for me."

"Maa, ever so strict, aren't you." Kakashi sealed the vial and put it into the small box which he took to the fridge. Iruka was already sipping tea as he returned with his coffee and sat next to the man. He took a small sip from his mug before replacing his mask and looked at the thoughtful man on his side. "Have you noticed something else while we fight?"

The teacher hummed for a moment and leaned back on the terrace. "...No, now that you ask about it. Maybe some things are changing so slowly that I don't realize them happening," Iruka shrugged with a raised brow and took a sip. "But somehow, I don't know why, I enjoy fighting with you nowadays even more than before." With that he gave a glance at the copy-nin who was observing him. Then he felt a wide grin tilt his lips. "I'm becoming insane, aren't I?"

Kakashi gave a low chuckle at the man's words. "Well, not insane, per se. You're just turning into a jounin."

That level of paleness on the chuunin's face couldn't be healthy.

Kakashi dodged to the side and away from the accurate fist hitting the wall on the spot where his chest had been, aimed his punch at Iruka's side and twisted his hand free from the eager fingers that were trying to get a better hold on it after blocking the blow. The jounin rounded the chuunin who fell in step with him, the darker man following his every twitch and moving on the same pace as Kakashi did while he circled the man, trying to find an opening for his assault. The men circled each other with not more than three feet of air between them, their bodies ready to give and block blows that were about the be exchanged as soon as either of them decided to make a move.

The moment when Kakashi's left leg shifted its angle as it hit the matted floor, Iruka was more than ready to face whatever the man had in mind for him. The chuunin took a defensive stance in seconds and it didn't take long for the pale body to plunge towards him, the jounin pulling his fist back for a quick punch.

After analyzing the angle of the hit and making his own decisions based on two or three possibilities on how the jounin would modify the hit, Iruka suddenly noticed it. The small opening he had been carefully searching.

For a second he speculated it to be a ruse.

As the pale fist sailed towards his head, the teacher made his gamble. He bent down, closed the distance between them, let the man's punch fly past his shoulder a mere inch away as he spun around to have his back at the man, straightened up and drove his elbow between the jounin's collarbones. A loud whack echoed in the room as the contact was made. The older nin's eye stared at him aghast when the pale body staggered backwards and Iruka continued his turning momentum to face his opponent as he felt his lips tilt into a victorious smile when his fingers closed around the chiming goal. His other hand delivered the final blow on the same spot on the man's sternum before the elite could catch on his actions, and the red thread came off as the jounin stumbled backwards from the hit.

The alarm began its high-pitched beeping and Kakashi leaned down with his hands against his thighs while taking a few deep breaths. Iruka cast a curious look at the defeated man.

"Have you noticed that this tag is starting to resemble our first days before we decided to try this method, Kakashi-san?" the teacher noted nonchalantly as he tossed the bell in the air just to catch it again.

Kakashi straightened up and gave his arms a small stretch, a thoughtful hum resonating from his throat. "Could be, now that I think about it. Do you wish to switch back for this being just a game of tag, sensei?" the jounin asked and a teasing, playful look crossed his eye.

"No need necessarily," the chuunin mused while he observed the bell he was playing with. As he caught it once more Iruka shot a mischievous smirk at the older shinobi. "Not when I'm the one doing the ass-kicking, that is."

The masked man's rumbling laughter was something he doubted he'd ever grow tired of.

Iruka let out a delighted moan as the warm water washed away the sweat he had been pushing the whole day, and a brief laughter echoed from the other shower stall next to him.

"Need a helping hand over there, sensei?"

An indignant blush bloomed on his cheeks as Iruka took some shampoo on his hand, calmly weighed the nearly full bottle in the other and then promptly tossed it to the other side over the stained glass wall. A pleased smile tilted his lips when he heard the plastic hit wet skin and a surprised yelp escape the older man. "Keep the perverted ideas to yourself, idiot. Not all of us think through innuendos on daily basis, mind you."

A small pained grunt was slightly muffled due to the sound of water hitting their bodies. "True. But, being a pervert is so much more fun than acting all straight-laced. And don't hit people with plastic bottles, it's rude."

Iruka raised a brow at that remark while he rubbed his scalp clean from all the dust gathered on it from the constant encounters with the floor. They would need to clean the place soon, that ANBU did a lousy job with the dusting. "Saa, I didn't hit you with it, I threw it at you and managed to land a hit on you with it. I thought that the difference would be clear to all jounin. Besides, being on the receiving end of various flying projectiles, moreover successfully dodging them, should be an obvious point in your job description by now, concerning how long you've been working in this profession, Kakashi-kun." It was a vain attempt to keep the smug smirk out of his voice.

A dark hum reached his attentive ears from the other side. "Now you're just begging for it, sensei-"

"For the second time, I do not beg, bastard."

A dry snort caught the chuunin's sharp ears. "Nonsense. Everybody begs, even you."

"Have fun making me," came the challenging reply from the sensei as he rinsed his hair happily. The following loud series of abrupt coughs and gurgles made the chuunin replay the said words in his head for a moment.

On his side, amidst his struggles to get all the excessive water out of his lungs, Kakashi was certain that the whistling sound resembling a tea kettle that was piercing through the sound of their showering did not come from the kitchen nor from the plumbing. The jounin took a deep breath and hit his chest for a few more times before he found his voice again. "...Maa, still up for-"

"Stuff it, Kakashi-san."

They laid on their futons, both the cup and mug at hand, as the men concentrated on their chosen literature. Kakashi cast a look from behind his book at the other man laying on his mattress on his stomach, the strong jaw propped up on one hand and the dark eyes scanning the sealed pages of the notebook. Iruka hadn't tied his hair up after their shower and the man's towel was already neatly placed to dry hanging from their bedroom's wall hooks, as Kakashi's was folded, granted, but still left on the floor next to his bed. The academician was always very neat in jounin's opinion, his stacks of paper were the most straight ones in the mission room and his scrolls sealed more properly than others', not to mention the orderly line of pens decorating the desk's surface, conveniently at hand for swiftly served penalties should someone piss the man off. As the gray eye focused on the sensei who was lost in his own thoughts, Kakashi found his eye wander idly over the man's whole demeanor.

Then again, with the visible results he could consider cleaning more often as well.

"Is there something on my face, Kakashi-san?"

The smooth words snapped the gray eye's attention back at the tan face, moreover at the man's eyes that were giving him an intense, speculating gaze. Kakashi had no doubts that the other had been tempted to use some other word instead of 'face' in his question, but wasn't the one to point it out. "Just wondered how you're doing with the seals. You know, a genius offering his assistance if needed."

A dry snort was given and the dark eyes fell back to look at the current spread which had yet to pop open. "Wouldn't that be against our bet?" Iruka had possibly only three more seals left and for the time being all he had was only a vague idea of their logic, since he hadn't been present when the previous ones had opened. He was reluctant to think that he should waste one seal just to see what it looked like when activated. Not to mention admitting to himself that he needed to wait for that in order to get a better idea on the exasperating riddle.

"Minor details. We could settle for a draw then," Kakashi mused behind his book.

"I think that I'll manage, Kakashi-san."

"Not one to settle for a draw, are you, sensei?"

"After the months that we've been greeting each other with knuckles before saying 'hello' that could be the case, yes," Iruka's smirk was interrupted with a yawn and he closed the book. Then he sat up, stretched his back leisurely, while noting that his right shoulder will hurt like hell the next morning, and emptied his cup with a gulp.

"That shoulder looks like it could use some more stretches." Kakashi gave Iruka a lingering look before putting away his porn with the rest of the bunch and sitting up on his futon. The teacher put away his cup and rolled his shoulders while looking to the side as the copy-nin took a few gulps on his coffee, the man wincing a bit at the slightly tangy taste of the liquid. Lukewarm coffee was never pleasant to drink.

"Undoubtedly. Feels like it as well." Iruka put the notebook properly away before looking back at the ex-ANBU. The masked man nodded and then they both stood up, shook their limbs back awake for a second and then took a good hold on each others' shoulders before bending their knees and descending slowly. They stopped when their knees reached the ninety degrees angle and stood still for a couple of minutes before gradually ascending back up. They squeezed each others' shoulders for a confirmation for continuing, and repeated the stance a few more times before switching for another position.

"Sit a bit straighter, Kakashi-san," Iruka said from behind the other's back as he took hold of the older man's arms that were lifted upon the man's head, the jounin sitting cross-legged on the floor. The addressed shinobi straightened his back and then Iruka proceeded to slowly bend the lifted arms back while pressing the side of his knee and thigh between the man's shoulder blades, observing both the man's breathing and body language. The right arm gave a twitch and Iruka gave it a tiny squeeze, then he felt the muscles turn more pliant under his fingers. The jounin's breathing turned deeper with each passing minute and the pale body became more relaxed in teacher's eyes. Though the sensei also sensed for there to still remain the thin edge of alerted attention in the elite's figure.

"...Maa, been a while to let someone stand this close behind my back," came the quiet words behind the mask, and if Iruka's hearing was correct, the older man sounded slightly apologetic. A warm smile spread on the teacher's face as the meaning of the shallow note was examined in his mind.

"You're doing well, Kakashi-san. Just let me know." Iruka felt the muscles twitch under his hold before they settled for the last minutes of their stretch. The teacher lowered the hands at Kakashi's sides and the jounin rolled his shoulders slowly and shook them a few times. "...As for the..ah, bad morning, um..is miso soup okay for you, Kakashi-san?"

Kakashi stilled and turned to give a bewildered look at the man now crouching behind him. Iruka's lips were drawn in a grim line and the dark eyes concentrated on the floor while the man traced his scarred nose awkwardly with his finger. Kakashi felt his gut stir strangely at the sight and after a heartbeat it wasn't only the chuunin that stared with wide eyes at the pale hand resting on his shoulder. After recovering from the initial shock of his muscles working without warning his brain first, Kakashi had a fleeting second to reconsider his following action.

The rising flush of on the high cheeks was as entertaining as ever to Kakashi when the Konoha's infamous S-class elite jounin gave the chuunin's shoulder a warm squeeze served with an equally warm smile spreading on his unexpectedly flushing face. "Maa. I'll make the fish then."

The men looked astounded at each other, both taken aback by their suddenly changed, new form of communication. They had argued and settled their fights before, true, and were, against the common assumptions, capable of having an amiable conversation and even compliment each other when the situation called for it, but touching one another in such a manner that the jounin's hand was currently displaying had been, by far, the least expected way of expressing their budding friendship at each other.

Kakashi slowly turned the now very warm hold on the other's shoulder into a firmer squeeze before giving the younger nin a more familiar expression of two brightly smiling eyes. "How about we fix that shoulder, eh, sensei?"

Chapter Text

The darkness that enveloped the shinobi village reached for every corner it could find, harassing the little flickers of light on its way through the now hollow streets and alleys which were earlier bustling with the daily traffic. The following silence hushed the remaining nocturnal creatures and the voices of the latecomers faded into the air as the starry sky and the moon gave out their light in order to help the last ones to find their homes on their tired, or intoxicated, way.

The pale light wandered over the ordinary house in ordinary neighborhood, and was thrilled to find puffs of steam to play with while the modest water boiler hissed on the kitchen counter in the dim light of the kitchen lamp.

Yawning, Kakashi leaned against the counter as he waited for the hot water. The sound of hissing and bubbling filled the kitchen and the man couldn't help but compare the current sounds with the more temperamental man who was fast asleep in their shared bedroom. The current noise pattern was remarkably similar with the chuunin's boiling blood, and the jounin had to wonder if that's why the teacher preferred tea over coffee. After the faint click telling that his waiting was over, the copy-nin poured the scalding liquid in a tiny bowl with some instant noodles in it. Then he placed a plate as a lid on it and leaned yet again against the counter as the time slowly ticked by. He could feel his eyes droop a bit, but as the passing, rather frustrating hours had shown, he wasn't going to get any sleep by tossing and turning in his bed. Even listening to the teacher's steady breathing wasn't helping.

Hence, he made himself a snack.

Rubbing his scalp and more or less relaxed shoulders, he let his eye wander over their current household, noting that despite being scarce in square meters the clever floor planning gave it plenty of space for them two not to feel claustrophobic with two quite healthy egos being stuck under the same roof. The dark corridor was the only narrow space in their house, apparently meant for just separating the toilet from the other rooms. Amidst his thoughts, the jounin scratched absently behind his ear and lifted the makeshift lid to give a brief look at his food. Carefully, he placed the lid back with a clink to give the noodles a few more extra minutes, since this wasn't a mission where he should settle for half-made nutrition or no food at all. Being a jounin and an ex-ANBU did set many seemingly irrelevant things in a very different light, such as patiently waiting for the softening of long, thin, curly strings of dough that were deemed to be edible by someone, undoubtedly blond, in the ancient times.

Small wonders.

After a couple of minutes, the lid was taken off and the copy-nin seasoned his modest portion, savoring the fact that he in fact had time to calmly prepare his meal on a mission after suffering occasionally from hunger bordering severe malnutrition during the three last missions he had completed in the previous month. The passing thought stopped the stirring pale hand and the gray eye stared at the bowl as the silver-haired head kicked in a gear or two in the genius mind inside the hard skull. A low, insightful hum was released beneath his mask and the jounin took the bowl in his hand, tugged down his mask and leaned against the counter with a bit more relaxed manner than a minute ago before eating his food in earnest.

Beneficial mission, indeed.

The gray eye became more focused and the pale lips were drawn into a pensive line while the teeth behind them munched on the slippery bites.

What should he do to that cursed, tiny bottle, though?

Sure, the oil was chakra infused, which would help immensely to heal their muscles and relax properly in order to stay sufficiently agile, and he surmised that Tsunade had foreseen what their reaction would be with it. In fact, the jounin didn't doubt for a second that after seeing the destruction they had caused on the house and their equipments, the Hokage hadn't needed any more reasons to send them her little 'gift'. Hell, knowing her way of reacting when she'd hear that they haven't touched it with anything less than an eleven feet long pole, the massage oil fell promptly into Kakashi's category of inventive means of giving Tsunade a valid reason to punch them into the next week instead of merely yelling their ears off. Even thinking about probing the subject with the sharp-tongued sensei caused a cold shiver travel down his spine.

He'll turn into a missing nin before she'd even manage to breathe the word 'tent'.

After slurping down the remaining noodles, Kakashi washed and dried the bowl and the used utensils, and then silently contemplated on making himself some coffee. He did need his sleep. Then again, he was highly skeptical about feeling sleepy enough to hit the futon just yet.

"...Why are you up so late?" A groggy, gruff voice groaned behind his back.

Coffee it was, then.

"Couldn't sleep," Kakashi answered nonchalantly and dug out his precious coffee. He calmly measured the water in the machine's tank before putting the grains in the filter bag as he felt the other step silently next to him. As the coffee began to brew, he observed the drowsy teacher, the man's dark hair tied up in a sloppy ponytail somewhere in the vicinity of the back of his head, to touch tentatively the water boiler, notice the opened noodle package and hum sleepily in thought before taking his tea stash and cup.

"You made yourself a night snack without waking me up to have some as well? Greedy jounin," Iruka mused with a tired smirk beside Kakashi and the older man felt a wry smile tilt his lips at the chuunin's teasing words.

"Ah, but you didn't strike me as a night eater type, sensei," Kakashi said and gave the man a sly once-over.

"I'm not. I just prefer my night snack with company," came the smooth reply with a wicked, playful look cast at the jounin's direction. The chuunin was obviously waking up more properly.

A chuckle met the mirth-filled eyes. "I see. Will that do with any company?"

"Oh, not all company. Just the good," Iruka gave a grin before taking a sip of his tea and leaning his backside against the counter, his other hand crossed over his chest while the other held the cup to his lips. Then he gave another, more strict look at the silent jounin next to him. "..So, what's picking on your brain cells in that bleached head of yours so much that you'd lose your sleep for?"

Kakashi gave a curt shrug at the question and focused on the chugging coffee maker. Iruka kept his dark eyes on the man while the full lips traced the edge of the porcelain absentmindedly, something that made Kakashi's skin tingle a bit as he discreetly studied the other from the corner of his eye under the unwavering gaze. Then the gray eye gave a passing glance at the academician and the jounin calmly filled his mug, noting while doing so that the teacher had turned his eyes away and was now drinking the tea with a pensive air around his figure. The men sipped their hot drinks in silence as the night lingered around them, time ticking steadily towards the following day that was yet to dawn upon them. Then Iruka gave a tired huff, filled his cup again and then left it steep on the counter before going to their bathroom. After a moment the man returned and Kakashi's eye caught on the all too familiar little bottle not so gently placed on the counter top by the man's hands. Iruka leaned back against his previous spot with his tea. Then the dark eyes sought out the lone gray one that was fixed on the small glass vessel between the men.

"Any solutions so far?"

"None whatsoever. You?"

"I think you had a fair glimpse on what my progression was on this case earlier, Kakashi-san," the mellow voice grunted as the dark eyes glared briefly at the minuscule bane of their common existence. Kakashi cast a brief look at the man and caught a glimpse of a small embarrassed blush on the high cheekbones before focusing back on the innocent bottle. The men stood by the counter in thoughtful silence, both the silver and brown brows furrowed in deep speculations as the two minds mulled over the matter at hand.

"...So."

"So..."

The night held its breath as the silver-haired man cast a wary look at his brown-haired counterpart.

"...We could give it a go-"

"I'd rather have a three-course meal with Gai-san."

"Maa, maa, watch your tongue, he might hear that. Besides, don't tell me you haven't shared any thoughts on trying it at least," Kakashi, true to his nature of being either the bravest or the craziest of the bunch when it came to dealing with dangerous situations, smirked and winked suggestively at the man who was rightfully feared for his ever so impressive skills of turning everyday objects into deadly weapons in half a second. Had been a while for him to hear Iruka search for his syllables so fervently. He should practice shocking the man more often.

"I- you- what, no ! I haven't thought of anything like that!" Kakashi felt a small rise in the kitchen's room temperature, and on that note an evil smile found its way on his hidden lips. Now, this was interesting.

"Then you should. I'm usually not one to brag, but it might be worth it," he added with a suggestive leer and leaned a fraction closer to the now furiously blushing chuunin.

"Come again?" Now the temperature was downright tropical. Also the ominously ticking vein on the now red forehead did make Kakashi re-check his position towards the nearest escape route before continuing with his next words.

"It's part of our current assignment, sensei. Surely a responsible shinobi-" The banging sound of china meeting hardwood cut off his argument.

"Has your lazy ass been awake during this mission? Moreover, have you paid any attention on how keen we two are at tickling the other's jaw with an elbow whenever an opportunity arises? There's no way that I'll lather you with something that would make it impossible for me to grab you for a beating, even more so when I know that you'd use the given chance the moment you get it and kami help me I will not come closer to your bare albino buttocks with anything less than one of my sharpest katanas." The heatedly lecturing sensei had hit a few good points, Kakashi had to admit. Even the ones that had crossed his mind as well, save for the threat of getting his ass cut into sashimi should he ever approach the man nude. But that didn't stop him from continuing their current argument that was turning out to be incredibly amusing to him, despite the slowly gathering irritated aura just four feet away from his broadly grinning figure.

"First of all, it's not 'albino', it's 'pearly white'. Secondly, you talk as if you wouldn't seize the moment when it presents itself to you, Iruka-sensei."

The clearly unimpressed, flat look accompanied with an expertly arched dark eyebrow made Kakashi shortly remember his father's expression when it took him more than three minutes to understand the difference between shuriken and kunai at the age of two. Then again, he had indeed learned fast after that small escapade, as well having eventually understood why it isn't smart to neglect wearing the armored gloves while handling sharp-edged weapons.

The things one needs to screw up in order to become a better shinobi.

Then again, on that thought the orange, loud ramen addict should be a jounin by now.

Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose with an exasperated groan. "Of course I would. That's why we have a problem, dimwit."

After being snapped out of his wildly swirling thoughts by the rather unexpected answer, Kakashi gave a loud bark of laughter at the chuunin's words, slightly surprising the man, and took the discussed bottle in his hand to give it a better look.

The sudden look of an idea flashing in the gray eye made Iruka's eyes narrow and his fingers tighten their hold on his already mistreated tea cup. He didn't like the current smirk stretching the dark mask. The perverted genius was up to something, and the teacher was already calculating the speed and angle needed for a good toss at the bastard's head. He would need a new cup afterwards, but he could live with that outcome.

"...Maa, then we'd just work around the problem."

"...Eh?" Violent thoughts promptly forgotten, Iruka gave a befuddled frown at the said words. What did the smug bastard aim for now?

"She didn't specify when and how this oil should be used, correct?" Kakashi asked and directed an inquiring look at Iruka, who curtly shook his head as a confused answer. The mismatched eyes smiled and Kakashi tossed the bottle in the air before placing it back on the counter. "Well then there's the solution. We're trained to obey orders. If we don't have specific instructions, we don't act on the spot. Simple as that. We'd just tell her that there's acutely no need for us to use this since we do just fine with the current stretches."

Iruka gave him a long look, then took the bottle in his hands and examined it for a moment, during which Kakashi wondered if he had still missed something that was ticking on the chuunin's nerves. Then Iruka let out a light chuckle and tossed the bottle to Kakashi.

"You really are worthy of your rank, Kakashi-san," Iruka said and shook his head. How had he missed the obvious loophole? If there was no direct order, either written or said, they didn't need to obey it firsthand, but they could use their own discretion on when to perform the wanted action.

If at all.

"Flattering words and starry-eyed admiration are always welcomed, sensei," Kakashi said as he felt a more honest smile tug his lips wide under his mask. Somehow he could understand a bit better why the man's pupils valued their sensei so much, attempted escapes and riots aside. He could get used to the warm compliments formed by the witty, full-lipped mouth. Iruka laughed and gave him a sidelong glance, the chuunin's deep brown eyes bright and...mischievous? Kakashi cocked an eyebrow at the look in the teacher's eyes and Iruka stepped to the door leading to the backyard. The man pulled it open and walked to the dark yard, the starry sky expanding over it and the village around them. Kakashi, curious as ever, followed the man outside after returning the oil bottle way back on their bathroom shelf. He felt the damp ground under his bare feet and the scent of the fallen rain still lingered in the humid air around the two shinobis as they stood under the night sky. After a moment of admiring the starry scenery in silence, the jounin gave a look at the teacher who had kept his eyes turned at him for a good while already.

Iruka's gut stirred giddily and he felt his lips turn into a coy smile as his muscles twitched restlessly with sudden eagerness that filled them. If asked, he doubted if he would be able to answer as to why he did what he was about to do. Truthfully, though, he couldn't bring himself to think about it as his body shifted automatically into a familiar offensive stance that had its own meaning as a part of the silent language in their profession.

The blink he received spoke clearly about the older man's confusion. Then the dark eye narrowed ever so slightly and gave the smiling chuunin a calculating look. "...The ground is soaking wet, sensei."

"Afraid for your fancy clothes, Sharingan Kakashi?" Iruka raised a challenging brow and cocked his head arrogantly to the side with his jaw tilted up, knowing perfectly well how much that gesture sometimes annoyed his opponent.

The following, sharp silence did raise his alertness exponentially, though.

"..Not exactly that," said the low voice suddenly from Iruka's right. "It might just become difficult to distinguish you from the ground after a while."

Iruka lashed out to the right, barely blocking the blow to his side and then the second to his shoulder. He rushed a few feet away from the assaulting shinobi and as the man continued the attack by dashing after him, Iruka stopped dead on his tracks and dove around to deliver a swift high spin kick, effectively stopping the other from advancing and forcing the jounin to dodge backwards, thus creating himself an opening for his own attack. With few quick steps he closed the distance between them and Kakashi was pleased to block the impressive series of accurate punches directed at different vital spots on his torso, all effective if ever making contact with their target. The man had indeed listened the ex-ANBU, a thought that made the masked man smile and he could feel the hot adrenaline fill his veins as he decided to show the sensei exactly how much he appreciated having a diligent student in his class.

Iruka felt the strong hands grab his forearms in mid-swing and before he could prevent it a kick smacked against his side first once, then twice, then once to the other side before he was yanked forward and a mean set of knuckles collided with his jaw, sending him flying onto his back in the mud. The starry sky greeted him from the horizontal viewpoint, but instead of immersing himself in some stargazing, the chuunin instantly dodged on his side and away from a nasty upper-cut kick cutting into the mud. Iruka scrambled on his feet, not caring about the cold wetness clinging against his skin, and plunged himself at the other before the older nin had managed to stand up properly after the performed kick. Kakashi blocked the combo of a double kick and two punches before dodging down from the second high kick and kicking the leg from under the tan man who landed roughly once more to the ground, the muddy soil giving a wet splash underneath the lean body.

"Maa, sensei, so messy tonight, aren't we," the jounin drawled in mocking arrogance as he watched the other pick himself up from the ground. Then his gray eye widened a fraction.

No academy teacher should be able to vanish so quickly in the shadows.

"...Cocky words suit most men poorly, Kakashi-san," the mellow voice resounded suddenly unexpectedly close and before the surprised jounin could understand how the other had managed to sneak behind his back under his very own eye, Iruka gave his both sides a cutting blow, making the muscles and ribs unleash a sharp jab of pain through his system before Kakashi felt a rough hold on his hair yank him back. The dark sky tilted violently before his wide eye and he felt the gravity pull him down to the ground when the hold on his hair switched to the fist on his chest as Iruka firmly slammed his body to the soil, spilling a good amount of dirt on both of them in the process. In a blink the jounin swung his legs upwards at the teacher above him, making the man back off and shield himself against the agile feet.

Then again, the firm hold on his ankle was a surprise.

Iruka gave the man under him a sadistic grin and twisted the captured ankle to the side. Kakashi snarled on the agonizing pain while forcing his body to ignore the discomfort as his other leg kicked out to the teacher's hip and the older nin was pleased as his heel collided with the man's hipbone, resulting with a pained hiss. He swiftly kicked out at the same spot the second time, making the darker man lose his hold on his other leg as the teacher hesitated on grabbing the kicking leg a little too long. Iruka rapidly moved away from his now free opponent and the moment Kakashi had gracefully hopped back on his legs he felt strong hands grip his upper arms and his body being pushed by the other. His heels dug into the slippery ground as he resisted the push and started to lean his own weight on the tan body struggling in his now equally steel-hard hold on the well-trained arms. They pushed, twisted and bent the joined bodies and circled each other in a closed range while maintaining the hold on each others' arms. Low growls filled the air between the panting men as they wrestled under the pale moonlight and the multicolored street lights of their village, the play of light and shadow flickering on both their sweating and dirty forms and the veiled curves of lean muscles underneath the soaked clothes now clinging to their skin.

Kakashi let suddenly go of the tan arms, thus making Iruka lose his balance momentarily and fall towards the other, then took the chuunin's neck under his elbow and pulled the fiercely resisting body further against his own. Iruka relocated his own hold from the other's arms on both the pale shoulder and the masked jaw, pushing against the hold the older man had managed to get on him. Their legs drew deeper gutters in the soil as the younger man's body jerked and turned under the pale arm and the masked man tried to stay standing upright while his head was being violently tilted up and to the side by the muddy hand on his jaw and the other dark-skinned hand clawed his skin as his own hand tried to pry it off of him. Then suddenly Iruka pulled himself almost flush against the jounin's figure and shot his knee into the momentarily unguarded stomach of his counterpart, creating a distraction enough to escape the slackened hold around him. Kakashi coughed a few times and rubbed his hurting abdomen as his eye narrowed both from pain and slight annoyance at the crafty teacher who was constantly slipping from his grip. The gray eye watched with mild interest the bristled and drooping ponytail being straightened back to pointing high up, or as high as it could with a clump of mud dripping from the thick hair, and Iruka brought his fists to his sides, bent his knees a little and turned his other side facing slightly the silver-haired jounin standing across the yard, the burning dark eyes drilling intensely into the copy-nin's figure.

Kakashi was by the man in an instant.

"You should have thought that invitation twice, sensei," rumbled the low voice a mere inch away from the dark lips.

Iruka snarled and dodged down to the side as the pale fists flew past his head and shoulder. Then the deadly fist found its goal on the pale man's side and Kakashi felt the air leave him momentarily, then the fist was replaced with a cutting kick hitting him on the same spot, sending him stumble from the force. Seamlessly following, the same hard knuckles collided with his jaw, not once but twice, making his vision reel sideways for a second. Then the ever so nimble hands took a hold on the both sides of his head and once again Kakashi felt his body plummet downwards and meet the wet dirt under his back. Purely on a reflex, his hand shot out before the tan hands had left his head and Kakashi took a steely grip on the back of Iruka's head, pulling the dark-skinned face stare at him from above. His other hand shot out to deliver a blow at the teacher's gut, but the younger man managed to take the hitting hand into his own while steadying himself with the other against the ground next to Kakashi's head, resisting the pulling of the pale hand behind his tan neck. The pair stilled, and through the panting and glaring the men felt their muscles tremble from the stress they had already been exposed to during the long day. Their breaths mingled in the already chill air as Kakashi slowly forced the sensei's head lower inch by inch, ending up with them both puffing hot air on each other's faces only three inches away.

Iruka's other hand pushed desperately against the slippery dirt as he tried to hold himself off of the man under him. The warm air hitting his face carried a mixed scent of woods and dark coffee, and he could feel the strong body's heat tickle his skin. As the long, deft fingers curled tighter around his neck an involuntary, strong shiver traveled through Iruka's spine, and he felt his nails dig helplessly into the dirt as his mind suddenly screeched to a halt. The second the same fingers spread through his tangled hair, grabbed a hold of his head and he felt himself being pulled down onto his side and then on his back as the older nin rolled on top of him, the lithe, taut mass of flesh touching every inch of him as it settled between his suddenly straddled legs, Iruka realized with a jolt that the strange shivers raking through his body had somehow intensified. It was something that his hazy, tired and adrenaline-filled mind couldn't grasp, leaving him completely at the mercy of the odd sensations filling his veins.

"...You're trembling, sensei," a low, hushed voice pierced through the fog in his mind and Iruka focused his dazed gaze at the masked man hovering above him, moreover on the gray eye watching him from only four inches away. Swallowing down the even stronger flood of the new, foreign sensations with considerable effort, Iruka took a moment to assess his situation and glanced over at the position he found himself being forced into. Kakashi had straddled his legs with his own, leaning his weight on his thighs resting on top of Iruka's that were spread to the sides, the pale hands having a firm hold on his tanned wrists pulled next to his head, and the masked face had inched towards his own with every passing second, making the breath catch in his throat and Iruka had to grit his teeth harshly together as yet another wave of strange tremors ran through him. A sharp gasp was heard on top of him and suddenly the body pressing down on him lifted itself hastily away and Iruka felt strong hands pull him into a sitting position. The hands steadied him from his shoulders and his lungs started to fill up with the much needed air. As the words from the other's direction flew past his loudly thrumming ears, the weird swirl of emotions disappeared from him as abruptly as it had interrupted their fight, leaving him with a dully throbbing, foreign ache within his body and feeling...

...immensely pissed.

When the talking masked face was fully registered before his eyes and the jounin gave his cheek a stinging slap for a reason beyond him at that point, it took the chuunin only a second to fill his veins with something completely different.

"Iruka-sensei, can you hear-"

"Get off me!"

A sudden, loud crack echoed in the yard, soon to be followed by a howl of pain that would have made even Kuromaru's blood freeze.

"I'm telling you, you should have seen it coming! You've dodged them before!"

"'Huddub, 'ed'ei, id fuggig hurd'! Hea' i fadder, plea'e!"

"I won't be able to heal it any faster if you won't shut up!"

The dark, teary glare would have made even Sasuke cower. Iruka sighed and focused his chakra more efficiently on the bleeding mess of a once masked nose, the chuunin trying his best to ignore the sounds of clear discomfort and pain as his fingers worked on the damaged cartilage and bones, slowly setting them back to their righteous places on the weeping jounin's face. The mask had been lowered to reveal the damaged nasal bone area and Iruka couldn't help but feel the painful pang of guilt in his chest at every small whimper and hissed curse that escaped his mission partner's mouth as the pale fingers dug into the cool tiles of their bathroom floor.

"..Look, I'm truly sorry for what happened," Iruka heard himself murmur quietly as his eyes were trained solely on the healing process. "It didn't even occur to me that it would make contact." If he ever doubted how deadly one-eyed stare can become, he was sure of it now. "Drop the killing intent unless you want me to break your nose the second time, Kakashi-san."

The man under the green chakra narrowed the thundering eye further, but settled to glare at nowhere in particular. The sensei shook his head and grudgingly finished the healing in an uncomfortable silence between him and the accidentally maimed man. Then he sat back on his knees and turned his back to the still seething man sitting on the bathroom floor and put away the first-aid kit that had proven itself highly useful in their mission. They'd need to ask for more supplies the next time they see their Hokage, apparently none of them ever thought that two adult shinobi could use bandages, ointments and salves considerably more than a class full of pre-genin.

Considering who they were, on the other hand, it should have been obvious to all of them.

Keeping his back to the dead-silent jounin, Iruka stood up with a pained hiss from his own injuries and peeled the dirty clothes off of him before tying a towel around his unwashed figure and turning around to see the other man already stepping under the shower, the soiled training gear and bloody mask being dumped on the floor in a muddy, reddish heap. The teacher rolled his eyes at the pouting elite's back as he gathered the discarded clothes from the tiled floor and went to put the laundry machine on while the other man steamed up their bathroom. As he came back Kakashi stood still under the warm water with his back turned to the chuunin, the blood and dirt mixing with the water on the tiled floor. The chuunin dropped his towel on the floor and stood under his own shower. He closed his eyes as the first drops hit his skin, washing away the mixture of gray and brown that had managed to cover his body and hair. After a moment of vigorous scrubbing Iruka couldn't help but cast a careful look at the dark, silent form on the other side of the stained glass between the men.

"Erm..Kakashi-san...is..ah, is everything alright over there..?" He knew that he was skilled with basic healing, but one could never be too sure when messing with any other face than one's own. Embarrassing incidents were well-known to happen when the wrong tissue got connected with the wrong bone structures.

Things got messy and loud when that happened.

The dark figure gave him a slow nod after a moment and a quiet hum made its way through the air. "Maa, all fine now. That was mean, sensei. I'm bound to have a splitting headache now for sure." To Iruka's relief, a hint of smile could be heard in the said words.

He might be spared from being slaughtered in his sleep after all.

"In that case I should have done that ages ago. Maybe you'll get a glimpse on how bad my migraines are after decrypting your mission reports for six hours. That'll teach you." Iruka gave a tentative grin at the amused hum from the other man and stepped out of the shower to grab them a fresh set of towels from the cabinet. He wrapped one around himself after drying the most of his hair and hung Kakashi's own on the small rack attached to the cabinet door to wait for the man who still showered behind his back.

"In that case your methods should be investigated. Our youth might be in danger if that's your way of giving lessons to them," came the cool reply. With that Iruka stopped at the door, his hand resting on the wooden frame.

"...Saa, I'd me more concerned about certain misbehaving jounin. Especially the ones stuffed up with hay, Kakashi-san. [1]" Iruka felt eyes on him as he left the older man to finish his shower. After having dressed up his spare sweatpants, the teacher settled down under his blanket and with a tired yawn let his eyes wander over the black ceiling above him.

As the drowsy chuunin drifted slowly to exhausted sleep and as the pale jounin nursed his once again hurting ego and the recently healed nose in peace before joining the other, little did they know what had begun to stir awake underneath their seals as the fourth day of their peculiar mission came to an end.

Chapter Text

When one becomes a shinobi, it gets drilled into their heads that what matters the most is succeeding the given missions and reigning in the unnecessary emotions. One may not like the situations they are forced into, one may even resent the ways the diplomacy is handled and curse the times when there's no other option than to use violence towards their fellow nin, but nevertheless, the unwavering mask of professionalism should be held on its place when performing the received mission parameters.

For some, over time, those masks become physically visible parts of their characters.

For others, however...

"One, two, three!"

"One more time!"

"One, two three!"

"Again!"

"I'd say that you're cheating, sensei."

"Saa, is the pot telling the kettle black - no way!"

"Ah-ha!"

"Damn it!"

"Didn't think I'd go for that one, eh?"

"You cheat, you were clearly going for paper first!" Iruka glared with a poorly disguised grin as he sat back and stuck out his tongue at the laughing man in front of him.

"Maa, I warned you I've had plenty of practice in this, sensei," Kakashi drawled as his eyes crinkled in a bright smile. "Now, as our agreement was..." With mocking delicacy, he took the tray with the leftovers of their breakfast and passed it to the chuunin who, on his behalf, rolled the dark eyes as he took the offered dirty dishes from the very smug jounin.

"You know, I'm starting to doubt that your training is nothing more than children's games being modified for adults, with all the bell-chasing and now this." Iruka cast an amused look over his shoulder at the older man who followed him inside the house. The silver-haired nin settled to lean against the kitchen counter and observed in a lazy manner as Iruka cleared the empty plates, bowls and cups from the remnants of their food and drinks before putting them into the sink.

"Ah, but with all the crazy jounins wrecking your mission room it should have been obvious to you by now. You'd be amazed with the results we achieved by combining touch rugby with hopscotch," Kakashi mused and felt his grin spread even wider at the bright laughter bubbling past the younger man's lips. As far as the current mood was concerned, he wouldn't mind waking up more often at eight-thirty, even if it did clash with his carefully created reputation of an insufferably phlegmatic person enough to rival one young Nara.

"Undoubtedly so, Kakashi-san," Iruka snickered and shook his head as he started to wash the dishes, a wide smirk etched on his face. The friendly ambiance they shared was more than welcomed for him, and Iruka was glad that Kakashi didn't seem to hold a grudge about the issue of the broken nose. Even losing in 'rock-paper-scissors', of all things, couldn't threaten his good mood, as annoying as the boasting grin on the masked face was. "You make us chuunins sound so serious, though. I wish I could play games and get paid for it."

"Oh? And here I thought that that's what teachers do all the time." Kakashi cocked a playful eyebrow at the tan man's musings. The brown eyes gave him a sternly pointed look, but the grin was there.

"Be my substitute for a week and then we'll see what you think, Kakashi-san." Iruka couldn't help but smirk even wider at the slightly concerned look passing in the gray eye. Sure, the civilian schools did have time for games and the teachers were considerately less stressed out compared to their shinobi colleagues, but Iruka did like his more serious-minded curriculum. Furthermore, if he remembered correctly, the closest he ever got to play a children's game at work was a rather nerve-wrecking version of hide and seek with Naruto, Kiba, Chouji and Shikamaru, his important folder holding their grades and a box of explosive tags.

If the kids survived long enough to play games after becoming jounin, he was more than happy to sacrifice his personal desire for having fun in order to make them achieve that.

Including them surviving his wrath after the insane stunts, that is.

"Ah, but then again, as one could see you as the prime example of a capable chuunin, I'd say your rank is far from being dull, sensei," said the low, warm voice next to him. Iruka's hands slowed the scrubbing for the briefest beat, but then he fluently picked up the next plate and cast a sidelong glance at the gray eye he felt on himself, the unyielding gaze of the other man as unreadable as ever. Then he flashed a mocking smirk at the older nin.

"Are you trying to flatter your way out of today's chores, oh mighty copy-nin-san?"

Against his expectations, a mere lazy shrug met his teasing words and the gray eye stayed calm, the jounin still keeping his eye on the darker man. "Take it how you wish it, sensei. You're in charge of today's dishes and food, as yesterday you not only insulted me and used my property despite the shinobi protocol, but then broke my nose after dipping me thoroughly in mud, and now even lost in a simple children's game, plus, if my superior mind remembers correctly, yesterday you did offer to cook as a placating gesture for your rash actions." Pleased with his uncanny logic, Kakashi smirked and waved casually as the strolled out of the kitchen back to the sunny terrace, leaving one gaping chuunin with his dirty dishes.

Not that he expected to silence the loud man long enough with that.

"Did your genius brain also remind you that you'd be preparing the fish today as you said you would, Kakashi-san?" Iruka called after the man and felt his eyebrow rise at the cocky glance he received over the other's shoulder.

"...Maa, but that was agreed before you attempted to decrease the number of my senses with one, sensei. Thus, as the rules of compensating go, you get the fish as well," the older nin winked evilly and chuckled at the glorious blush spreading on the horizontal scar. Hell, he was really having second thoughts of sleeping so long every morning if waking up early meant spending more time with the smart and, admittedly, quite -

A sudden jolt of electricity, resembling disturbingly his most powerful raikiri, surged through his upper chest. His hand shot out to get a hold on the wall to keep himself standing as he felt the strength vanish from his muscles. Through the numb haze he could see Iruka's lips move in what seemed like an alerted, shocked cry and the man rush to him from the kitchen, the jounin not really understanding why since the terrace floor seemed more than excited to catch him as the last threads of his consciousness dissolved into darkness.

For an active duty shinobi, as it was taught, the primary goal should be on succeeding the given missions. That goal on one hand also meant to take care of one's mission partners, since they were usually the key factor for everything to go well. But sometimes, far too often for everybody's liking, finishing the mission meant leaving someone behind, either injured and waiting to be collected later on, or dead and taken care of accordingly.

Iruka disliked both options.

One could suspect that to be the very reason why he was so keen on learning different barriers and traps that were rumored to have the largest range and best endurance among the chuunins, at least more likely than using them only for getting on his co-workers' nerves. Except in the case of the one specific, laid-back jounin who had been taken to the hospital the moment Tsunade had arrived into their house.

Iruka cast an absentminded look at the clear sky above him as he sat on the terrace, his tea long cold in his apathetic hands as his mind examined the things that had happened in the past minutes. Whatever it was that had floored one of the best jounins their village had, the teacher was sure that he wasn't going to like the news they'll send him. He had realized that they were hip-deep in something when he had spotted the disbelieving look of agonizing pain in the gray eye before the older man had hit the ground. Seeing the faint blue glow inside the man's chest on the spot where he knew the seal was had been the final confirmation regarding the severeness of their situation.

Never before had he sent a summon for ANBU so quickly.

Having put his cup down on the tray, Iruka folded his hands on his lap and regarded the muddy mess they had created on the ground the previous night, the dark eyes unseeing as the vigilant mind worked on their newest predicament. As the work at the Konoha's ninja academy had trained his memory, the chuunin meticulously replayed their sparring sessions from each day up until the latest one the previous night, the man trying to find any clues that could offer any help for the medics and their Hokage in order to get to the bottom of Kakashi's collapsing.

For how long he sat there until he sensed Tsunade behind his back, he couldn't tell.

"...The pathways? How can that be?" Iruka stared stunned at Tsunade who stood next to him in their training room, them both regarding the unconscious, silver-haired figure on the futon in their bedroom. Iruka could see the unsettling level of paleness on the already pale man and the slight stress tensing the the man's face, his own brows furrowing in deep concern at the sight which was unusual for him to see. He did know about the other's habit of coming back from his missions with chakra depletion more than once, but to actually see the man knocked out cold was a whole different matter.

"This can be taken as the first side effect, Iruka-sensei," the blonde woman said with a quiet voice. "It seems that the amount of chakra that you two were given wasn't enough to keep the pathways in good condition. From what we have managed to gather, it appears that a certain minimum amount of chakra must be circulating in your system in order to reach every pathway within your body, not only the main paths but the minor ones as well. Otherwise the result would be that the body starts to dysfunction progressively, assumably beginning with the loss of the fine motor skills and ending with the downfall of the vital functions. We're not as independent from our chakra system as we seem to think, sensei. No wonder the chakra restraints work so efficiently." Tsunade cast a dryly amused look at Iruka, who felt a cold uneasiness creep up in his veins as the look in the amber eyes told him clearly that it wasn't all that the woman had witnessed during the years she had worked with chakra.

He'd be a fool to ask about it.

Instead, he focused on the matter that was undeniably his business as well. "Do you wish to examine my pathways as well, Hokage-sama?"

The blonde woman nodded and they turned to look at the terrace where the sound of approaching footsteps caught their attention. After a moment Hyuga Neji stepped in sight, the pale-eyed young jounin carrying a tray of three cups and a tea pot in his hands.

"Good afternoon, Iruka-sensei."

In an odd sense, the calm, stoic smile on the younger shinobi's face did comfort him.

If only he didn't know better.

Despite the sunny afternoon outside, the silence that circled the two shinobi and their Hokage felt like it had attempted to swallow the light itself with all the sounds of the surrounding world, not daring to interrupt the deep concentration of the pale eyes that scanned through the immobile, if only slightly nervous, tan body. Having enjoyed their tea, they stood on the matted floor and Iruka focused his thoughts on the evenly breathing figure tucked in a bed a dozen feet away as he felt the young Byagukan user stand closer to him than was necessary in his opinion. Sure, Neji's generation had grown during the time of peace and Iruka wasn't one to flinch away from a comrade, but he still valued his well established safety range both with friends and foes.

One could never be too sure when interacting with the equally distrustful individuals.

"...He's fine now, Iruka-kun." Iruka turned his eyes to Tsunade who regarded him with a sliver of smile on the red lips. "We managed to balance his system and I boosted his pathways for extra precautions. The brat has now an amount of chakra that should suffice to keep him walking and talking. He just needs plenty of rest, and I suspect that it will take until the next morning when he'll wake up again."

"I still can't understand how, Hokage-sama." Iruka frowned and leveled his leader with an apprehensive look. "If our situation could lead to serious damage then how come the chakra restraints that are used for prisoners and enemies don't seem to cause the same result?"

"Well, for one, the restraints are rarely used for a long period of time since the prisoners are usually taken care of quite quickly, but more importantly, those restraints don't take away the person's chakra, but merely block the use of it. In other words, they still have their chakra reserves intact but without the means to use them. That's why we also didn't anticipate for this to happen, as we reasoned that giving you any amount of chakra should cover the needs of your pathway system. It seems that we went wrong with that assumption." Tsunade gave Iruka a curt look and then shifted to watch as Neji was apparently finishing his check-up on the young teacher. "Well?"

Neji stepped a bit further away from Iruka, who thanked the boy in his mind for that small gesture, and both Iruka and Tsunade could see him carefully asses his answer. Finally the young man seemed to reach a decision and turned to look at the chuunin while his words were directed to their Hokage.

"The second and third sector of the right leg are close to collapsing, as the first sector on his left ankle is endangered. The lower 56th and 67th points have almost none chakra inside them, so that might explain why you were careful with putting some weight on your left leg, Iruka-sensei," the Hyuga gave the slightly blushing older nin a small smile, apparently the man had only considered his muscles to be too sore, "As for the hands, the finger points are doing better than the ones on the legs, but they also need more chakra in them, plus the lower back has somehow received less chakra than the rest of the spinal area. Furthermore, the 35th, 34th and 33rd points on the right shoulder have seen better days."

Iruka felt his cheeks redden further as he realized that to explain the throbbing ache on his shoulder that has grated on his nerves the past days. Why didn't they even consider that possibility?

"All in all you're in better shape than Kakashi-san was when they brought him in, but..." The look in the pale eyes turned into more serious and the mouth of the ever so calm-looking young clan prodigy turned into a grim line. "You have collapsed once already, haven't you, Iruka-sensei?"

The moment Iruka felt Tsunade tense considerately and heard the woman cuss sharply he dodged down on well-honed reflex as the perfectly manicured fist flew past his head. He heard Neji call Tsunade in surprise but as his situation was he was far more interested in surviving the pummeling he was sure to receive once the now loudly cursing woman managed to get a hold on him.

"You collapsed? What the hell, Iruka? I thought I told you to inform me at once when something happens!" Tsunade roared in outrage as she grabbed the fleeing sensei, bunching up the fabric of the man's black muscle shirt as she pulled him face to face with her furious eyes.

"But that happened before you visited us, Tsunade-sama! And the ANBU who checked on me said that it was only physical exhaustion-" Iruka could feel the woman's breath waft against his skin as he tried to free himself from the grip of the homicidal Hokage. If he was feeling fine this morning, he was sure to get that mishap corrected by not only his collapsing chakra system but the fists of their village's best medic.

How he loved the irony that was his current life.

"To hell with the things that an ANBU says, they know only advanced basics to look at when doing the healing, you idiot! How can you act so stupidly, what! Do you have any idea that this situation could have been avoided if you had just opened that goddamn mouth of yours the other day instead of pouting over a stupid bite mark and sipping your tea all the time?!" Tsunade's bellowing echoed in Iruka's ears and for once he felt sorry for his students who had been unfortunate enough to experience the same treatment from him. "How about I give you a good reason to lose your consciousness for, huh?!"

"Tsunade-sama!" Both Iruka and Neji shouted in unison, the other from the sheer rising panic for his suddenly shortening life and the other from the utter annoyance on the whole situation. Annoyance that turned into deep concern in a split of a second. "Hokage-sama!"

"What?!" Tsunade snapped to look at Neji and from the other's shocked face she whipped her head back just in time to see Iruka cough up clear liquid from his mouth, the tan features suddenly sickly pale and twisting with nausea as the man heaved for breath with sickening gurgles bubbling in his throat as more liquid forced its way out of his figure. Although what turned the murderous urge quickly into professional healer's hard logic and efficiency wasn't the watery liquid half-vomited on her sandals.

It was the map of chakra points glowing faintly like dying flames under the teacher's black shirt.

The next things Iruka's reeling mind registered was him to be slammed on the ground on his back, two sets of hands ripping away his shirt and the other taking a hold on his head and tilting it backwards while the other seemed to work through a series of signs, as far as the enormous chakra spike he numbly sensed indicated. Before he knew it, a shockwave of pain with a force he had never thought could exist surged throughout his body, reaching for every vein inside his system and flaring up every nerve and pressure point on its way towards his head that jerked and twisted in the firm hold kept on both his jaw and the crown of the head.

The last thing he felt and heard was a raw, wet scream of pain ripping through his choking throat as the electric blue light accompanied with searing pain invaded both his mind and his lungs and the hold on his head slacked for a second.

Chapter Text

In order to successfully perform the given mission, the cell of shinobi was usually formed by different individuals who had skills on various fields, including the ones not directly connected to battle situations only. The chosen shinobi usually complemented each others' skills and were compatible in rank, which did increase the possibility for all of them to come back home alive and well. Sometimes, on the other hand, they were needed to focus on certain areas such as intelligence and infiltration, or searching and destroying, their needed traits then depending on the given order, which was another fact that also guided who were put in the same two or three-man cell.

The facts given, Tsunade had vaguely known what she was dealing with when she had formed her two-man cell, ending with an intriguing mixture of various levels of intelligence, perseverance, impressive observing skills and different temperaments. A rather unfortunate cell with both of its members located in their beds with two medics keeping watch over them. The amber eyes trailed over the latest patient she had saved from his ambivalent chakra system while Neji had summoned Shizune and others to continue her work as she then decided to have a few strong words with her ANBU squad. The faintly glowing map of Iruka's chakra points had vanished when the whole pathway system had been enhanced and stabilized, and the watery liquid had stopped its flowing from inside the dark-skinned man. Now the chuunin appeared to teeter on the better side of the coin, and Tsunade was slightly pleased to see that Kakashi's situation had stayed unchanged for the time being.

However, that also meant the lack of any improvements in the man's condition as well.

The Hokage left her valuable patients with others and stepped to the eerily silent terrace that glowed dimly in the dark night. She released a quiet, tired sigh and nursed her hurting temples while she took a few, soothing deep breaths of fresh air. It had been roughly eighteen hours since they had taken the brat to the hospital and approximately twelve since the teacher had grumbled down, and with the feeling of a cold dread that had settled in her gut, Tsunade grudgingly acknowledged that they were far from finished with the future difficulties as her self-ordered research mission went forward.

It wasn't the first time she had second-guessed her approach on the particular mission that had been bestowed on two of her most reliable assets. When the outlines were created and the orders were given, she hadn't doubted a second if she had made the right choice on who would perform the task. She did know about the past history of the bickering duo, but also about the surprisingly well-functioning collegial relationship between them, the amiable mood being something that not many noticed beneath their entertainingly explosive communication. A deep frown creased her young features and Konoha's best healer felt her hands clench into tight fists on her side, resisting an urge to split the wall beam next to her in two as darker thoughts surfaced in her mind.

Even though her shinobis were considered as her tools, hell, Konoha's tools, she had been determined ever since receiving the responsibilities of the Hokage to do anything in her power to keep them healthy, safe and sane.

A cracked blade became a dangerous burden she didn't want to impose upon her village.

Precisely for that determination she couldn't help but feel extremely pissed as she stepped to the dark yard, her darkened amber eyes scrutinizing the muddy traces of what seemed to be a struggle. She couldn't help but wonder if there was something she was missing with those two men. Something that was connected with their sudden collapses beside the obvious chakra failure. Her sight trailed one particularly deep gutter drawn to the ground, and seeing the other lines circling it she felt a dry smile form on her lips. Judging from the directions and weight of the traces, apparently the brat had had a challenging time with the sensei, who was proving to be an interesting case. Iruka seemed to run his thoughts and acts on much deeper level than it was first anticipated. Not that he ever gave himself away when they worked, but the edge was there, occasionally surfacing beneath the calm mask of a desk chuunin whenever the discussions wandered to the small blond nuisance who had went off to train with Jiraiya.

On that small thought the painted lips tilted into a pensive line and after a short moment of recalling the past events, the tired woman shook her head.

That wasn't what she had missed. It was something else.

Something that was individually different in those two dimwits who couldn't even properly take care of themselves, which reminded Tsunade to have a talk with both of them after they have pulled through this misfortune. For Kakashi she could understand the man's ignorance towards his well-being, since the jounin hadn't seen himself in any light for a very long time, especially since the Uchiha child left their team. Iruka, on the other hand, was relied on having enough sense in him to think for both of them, him working with kids all day and observing the returning jounins in the mission room, from where they occasionally received a notification or two when the tan man had suspected not everything to be well with his fellow nin. She didn't expect him to have a blind spot for himself, moreover for Kakashi. Her eyes narrowed and the fair-haired medic crossed her arms over her chest.

Then again, she knew that to be a high possibility.

After all, whatever it was, it was happening inside their bodies, and the blonde woman had lived long enough to know the fundamental factors that were both invigorating and sadly tragic epitomes of the philosophy she had been trained into, just like every shinobi of Konohagakure.

The man's body was as strong as his mind.

Thus, it was just as easy to conceal and break.

An alerted shout caught her attention and she was already on her way back in before they called for her. An aggravated, sharply hissed curse escaped her painted lips as the noises suddenly turned into panicking yells in the room with two of her sharpest blades with their lives on the line.

The wooden beam didn't stand a chance.

"Shizune."

"Yes, Tsunade-sama?"

"Bring me their files." The order was clear.

"...Yes, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade watched as her dark-haired assistant and a close friend bowed curtly before vanishing from sight. She popped a painkiller in her mouth and took a gulp of tea to swallow it down, letting her eyes wander over the tired medic-nins in the bedroom. They had dark rings under their eyes and she could tell some of them had exceeded their normal amounts of chakra they usually used when healing, ending with an almost hollow gaze in their eyes. Nevertheless, all of their focus was still directed at the now sleeping two shinobi, one dark and one pale, who had been keeping them busy for the whole night. Tsunade turned her eyes to greet the first rays of morning sun that dared to sneak inside the room, the tiny line of light seemingly unsure if it was proper to illuminate such a gloomy crowd. Then she swirled the cold green tea in her cup and gave her crew a tired, but hopefully positive smile.

"Good work, everyone. I'll continue from here, so go home now to rest. I need you in good shape in the next week," her smile grew a bit wider at the mixture of disbelief and relief washing over the exhausted faces and slowly, one by one, they thanked their superior and took off to their homes, each of them casting one last look at the still figures they had struggled with the previous agonizing hours.

As the last person closed the front door, Tsunade gave in to her tiredness.

She slid further down the wall she had been sitting against, her eyes fell closed and the tea cup tilted in her hands, and for a few passing minutes, she concentrated only on her breathing and the dull ache on her temples, counting the beats of her heart while her pulse calmed down as her inhales turned deeper. She had used a lot of her energy, but more than that it was the lack of proper sleep that had her mind turned into lethargic, sluggish mess-

...Katsuyu wouldn't like that pun, she was sure.

Chuckling quietly at her musings, she swigged down the rest of her tea, then snuggled more comfortably against the wall and gave a yawn before directing a tired glare at the sleeping forms before her. After the night's rather unexpected escapades and the narrow escapes from death or worse for both the healers and the healed, she was certain that the participated medics had indeed learned some new aspects on their profession. Even Tsunade herself had been surprised more than once over the long night. The memory of the last incident before dawn made a tiny smile form on her ever more so yawning lips.

This certainly was a peculiar mission.

Shizune found her fast asleep fifteen minutes later.

"That hit the spot. Thank you, Shizune."

"You're welcome, Tsunade-sama," Shizune smiled and finished calmly her own meal, comfortable silence settling between the two women. Tsunade took one of the manila folders the younger woman had brought earlier and flipped through the well-worn pages. Shizune observed her doings discreetly over the lunch she had set for them in the quiet bedroom. It seemed that the older kunoichi had spotted something concerning the recent events. "What is it that you're searching for, Tsunade-sama?"

Tsunade glanced at the younger jounin over the folder and then turned to look at their patients. "I wonder...what was it that Iruka said he had spotted when Kakashi had dived head-first to the ground?"

Shizune munched on the last bite of her lunch and Tsunade could see the woman go through her mind for the answer her leader needed. Ever so diligent and well-organized, no wonder why the woman was so frustrated with her slacking on the paperwork. "First it was the glowing blue spot on Kakashi-san's chest, and then Iruka-san said that he could also hear a faint buzzing sound surround Kakashi-san. Like electricity." Shizune saw the red lips pull into a wry smile over her words, making her frown in question. The Hokage was onto something, and the aide had a feeling she was only needed to confirm the suspicions that had already formed in the woman's mind.

Tsunade gave a lighter sigh and smiled a bit brighter. This may be what she missed. All she needed was the men awake and answering her questions.

"..Well. The things you learn-" suddenly Tsunade's eyes narrowed and she closed the folder sharply, her amber eyes trained on Kakashi's immobile form. Shizune followed her gaze and for a passing, frustrated moment she suspected yet another hellish seizure, the younger woman not sure if their drained energy was enough for handling one more. Or two in the worst case scenario.

The sharp, hissed cuss on her left was all the clue she got.

There were, in Kakashi's well-argued opinion, different kinds of silence.

Some of them had the nature of contentment, like the ones after an accomplished mission or a good meal, some carried a sliver of anticipation in them like the ones that usually took over the mission room when he harassed the particular honey-toned tyrant on the man's shift, and some were merely a sign of nothing significant going on at that moment, mostly meaning the maniac in green having been sent off on a mission, which usually gave enough reason to immerse oneself in good hours spent with adult literature.

Some types of silence, however, had a nature that made his neck prickle. The nature of an unpleasant, often ridiculously dangerous occurrence which was either about to happen or had just recently happened. An eerie type of silence which had become close to serving as the seventh sense for all jounin and ANBU members and, without a doubt, for all the ninja academy teachers as well.

For a moment he considered if opening his eye was worth risking his ass.

The fleeting thought made him realize his physical condition, which wasn't one to feel proud of in his opinion. His mind was a mess, his eyelids felt being swollen twice their size and it seemed that the bastard son of the mother of all headaches was playing drums with the both sides of his head. His legs and arms felt numb and heavy as lead weights and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to know what had managed to crawl under his mask and have an orgy on his tongue and rub itself against his tonsils. That and the ominous killing intent radiating closer than a feet away from his face was putting the wages quite well against the action of opening his eye, which had started to throb very irritatingly.

The only comforts he did manage to gather was that he was in a familiar bed and the growling voice didn't belong to the vastly feared tanned spawn of deranged demons. Then again, when he did recollect whom the now gritting teeth actually belonged to, he became also highly aware of the fist that was already sent to his direction.

Splendid.

Pulling out every ounce of self-preservation skills he was sure to harbor somewhere, Kakashi dove to the right, barely escaping from the blow that landed squarely in the center of his pillow, the power behind the impact making the seams break and thus creating a rather impressive feathery cloud scattering around the room. The now wide awake copy-nin crept further away from the assailant who he sadly knew all too well to really even think he would have a chance to run away from. Amidst the commotion his sight fell to the right on a form of another fairly familiar person, and for some reason his focus wasn't any longer on the outraged Hokage but the sickeningly still figure of the usually very lively chuunin teacher. Then his ears caught on the cursing voice close to him and he turned his gray eye to look at the furious blonde woman, who, as his fuzzy brain pointed out, was someone to better pay more attention to instead of ogling an unconscious tanned man. If his concern was visible and that was the reason for her to stop ranting about 'wankers that shouldn't be jounins', he wasn't going to wallow on that. "What happened here?"

Tsunade snapped her mouth shut, closed her eyes with a frustrated sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, apparently to calm herself down before she would do something to regret later on. Then she glanced under her brows at Shizune who nodded and left to the kitchen, although not without giving Kakashi a slightly unpleased look as well.

What had he done now?

"..Not even a minute awake and already asking questions. Get back to your bed, brat, before I have to drag you under the covers. You may not be fully recovered and as fun as it might be, I'm not in the mood of picking up your body parts from the floor any more than I already had," Tsunade grunted and wiped the floating feathers both from the bed and her coat before she sat back and observed as Kakashi slowly crawled his way back towards his bed, the man looking still weak and shaken. After the silver-haired nin had settled back under his blanket, save for the annihilated pillow, she saw him send a passing look at the younger man who seemed to have stayed unfazed despite all the loud noises around him. From the tiniest look of worry that passed in the gray eye, Tsunade could guess that the combination of vociferous cacophony and calm Iruka-sensei wasn't the most plausible scenario in the jounin's mind. That and the given look was carrying a very familiar undertone she had already witnessed earlier, if on an other person.

"He's fine, if that's what you're wondering. Well, in better shape than a few hours ago, to be more precise," Tsunade said quietly and answered the inquiring look in the narrow dark eye with her amber eyes.

"...What happened?" As much as Kakashi hated to sound like a broken record, he was fairly sure that to be the only question he had enough information to form. His thought was confirmed with the wondering look he received from the blonde woman.

"What can you remember?" The question was quiet but the intention behind it spoke volumes.

Kakashi fell silent and turned to look at the light ceiling, noticing now the sounds Shizune was making from the kitchen. He also noticed the unnervingly quiet and raspy breathing of the brown-haired chuunin a few feet away from him. "..Not much, unfortunately. We had breakfast. Sensei lost in rock-paper-scissors so he did the dishes. Then it all went black." He frowned. "No. Not black. Bright blue."

"Bright blue you say?" The keen interest was obvious in the woman's voice.

"Yes," Kakashi nodded. Then he turned to face the now very silent Hokage next to him. "And the constant chirping was honestly getting very badly on my nerves."

The amused snort hadn't been on his list of possible reactions from their Hokage. "I see."

"See what, Tsunade-sama?" Kakashi could have raised his eyebrow if he felt like doing it, but he decided to go for the lazy gaze he knew all too well to piss off many of his co-workers, Hokage included. Maybe he could irritate the wanted information out of her. Unfortunately, Tsunade waved her hand dismissively at his question, gaining a small annoyed frown from the pale jounin, and decided to wait until the chuunin had woken up as well in order to probe the spoken question.

If she had understood things correctly, then it was getting a bit clearer on what was happening with her shinobi.

"What else do you remember?" The amber eyes looked over him in a calculating manner and Kakashi wasn't so sure how he should respond to that look. His medical history was quite a tale to be told to the later generations, as well provided very informative lecture material for the new medics in training, and he was reluctant to think that they had yet another dozen pages to add to that neverending story of misfortunes.

In order to focus back on track, the copy-nin closed his eye, thinking back the previous moments. "I'm afraid there's nothing else to add, Tsunade-sama. But..why's Iruka-sensei knocked out as well?" With that he gave another unsure glance at the chuunin. He couldn't have attacked the man? Could he? He had heard about some jounins doing the unthinkable during their blackouts, but in those cases it was usually a result of a mental breakdown.

He certainly hoped his porn wasn't anywhere near the equation.

"You both collapsed due to your pathways kicking the bucket, so to speak. Iruka summoned us here and we took you to the hospital where we pulled you together before bringing you back here to rest, and then Iruka, who supposedly thought it unfair for you to be the only one to have some slack, went down as well. Which reminds me.." A firm fist slammed next to Kakashi's head and the once again peeved Hokage leaned a bit closer to the jounin who was fervently thinking back if they had done something to set her off so badly again. "...When has ANBU been adequate enough to act as the supervisor of your health, hmm?"

Blinking a few times at the woman's words, Kakashi felt the cold sweat push down his covered neck. The ANBU? What did she-

...Ah.

He'll kill that damn kohai. Although, the dark glare set upon him did put a damper on his thoughts of living that long to do that.

Never had he been so grateful for Iruka to have the perfect timing in everything.

A suffering groan snatched Tsunade's immediate attention and the planned homicides were forgotten for the time being as the medic shifted her eyes to watch the awakening man on the other bed, meanwhile giving Kakashi hope to form his plans to escape. As if sensing the older nin's intentions, Tsunade casually grabbed a firm hold on his shoulder, thus effectively pinning him in place and ignoring the pitiful whine from the man. She wasn't through with him, nor had she any thoughts of letting the now groggily blinking chuunin go with any lesser punishment for hindering essential information from her. She had just been given a chance to give them a slap of a lifetime and she wouldn't give it up at any cost. They owed it to her and her aids.

"..Where..what happened..?" Painstakingly slowly, Iruka propped himself on a shaky elbow and rubbed his eyes which felt heavier than in ages, the eyelids being very uncooperative for staying up by his will and his chest burned dully, as if he'd been coughing up his lungs for the last ten hours or so. Even his throat felt raspy and torn, which did little to make his already ill mood any better. Then the still unfocused, dark brown eyes landed on the two shadows in the same room and Iruka gave another groan as the damn eyes felt obliged to make it impossible to focus on anything. "...Damn it..Kakashi-san? ...Are you there...?"

"I'm here, sensei." Despite his earlier worry over the other man, Kakashi felt a playful smile tilt his lips at the disoriented chuunin. Iruka's hair was a tangled mess at the back of the man's head and the dark eyes stared right at him, all bleary and confused. "I'm the more handsome blur on the right, in case you're not sure."

Ah, there was the missing blush.

"...Piss off, will you."

...And there came the rest.

Shizune tapped the pen against the clipboard she had resting on her lap, the few papers already filled with detailed information on the past occurrences. The dark eyes followed the discussion between their Hokage and the two recovering nins, the men looking seemingly better after getting some edible and drinkable substances in them. The pen was lifted and scraped the paper again, the valuable words molding into valid sentences and further into interesting descriptions to be examined more closely in the future.

"..Why would our elemental base react to this? It's understandable for chakra to cause problems, but aren't the elements supposed to be the most stable foundation for a shinobi?" Iruka felt dumbfounded beyond comprehension and the tanned chuunin stared at the busty Hokage over his beloved tea cup as the man sat on his futon. This mission was proving his teachings wrong with a whole new variety of things he had to study once he got back home, and even though he wasn't all happy to endanger his own well-being for correcting some facts on their physiology, the thought of providing accurate knowledge for his students did miracles on his current motivation towards their mission. Others' opinions be damned, he was a teacher to the bone.

"We're astonished as well, sensei. But that's how it seems to be at the moment. I also doubted if that really was what had affected you beside the other systems going down before I read your files," Tsunade said with a purse of her lips. "Also based on what you both have just told me, and considering the things that happened when we healed you, I could fairly well confirm that, for a reason yet unknown, your elements are breaking free from your control."

"And how do you know when an element tries to get loose, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi laid on his bed with arms behind his head, turning his eye from its previous spot on the ceiling to face the pensive woman. This part was poking his interest much more than the everyday lecture about his chakra misuse, which had been the most discussed topic during the years of his constant hospitalization because of the damned red eyeball.

Tsunade pointed at the pale man with a slightly accusing finger, and they could all see the blazing, miffed look in her eyes. "For one, you tried to electrocute both yourself and two of my medics at least three times. Kami knows why, but you did enlighten that part when you mentioned the irritating chirping, which could only refer to your raikiri. In other words, it was your lightning that tried to fry up your intestines as well my crew. As for you," Tsunade turned her glare at Iruka who gulped at the stern look of the amber eyes, "our sensei here thought it immensely funny to either try and drown himself or spill water all around the room whenever his body became active [1]. With that over-eager imitation of a waterfall combined to a simultaneous pulse of electricity I'm actually surprised to see this house still in one piece. Not to mention the limbs and the central nervous system of the very unfortunate medic who was caught between you two idiots when it happened the first time." Tsunade had a hard time to conceal her sadistic smirk as the looks of her favorite pair turned into the ones of being utterly sorry for all that had happened to their colleagues. Undoubtedly the men were able to picture the rather humiliating events in their minds, if Iruka's creeping blush of embarrassment was anything to go by, and seeing the infuriatingly lazy gaze of Kakashi turn into one of miserable shame did brighten up her mood for the shitty night's worth.

What pleased her the most was that she had more coming.

"...Furthermore," and now she was highly aware of her lecherous smirk that seemed to make even the everlasting tan on Iruka's face to disappear, "if what happened the last few times you two gave us double trouble was possible to be applied for others, then we might have also found a very...exclusive way to expand our knowledge on one very specific medicine."

Shizune was blushing furiously at this point, her pen wavering over the paper as if doubting if it would be proper to continue the data gathering. Noticing the assistant's reaction, Iruka and Kakashi shared an equally uncomfortable look, the men undoubtedly debating between each other if it would be wise to let the broadly grinning sannin in question elaborate her implications. After the brief exchange of looks, Iruka hated to realize him to be chosen for the thankless job of asking what the woman was baiting them for.

"...What..medicine..exactly, Hokage-sama..?" Iruka swallowed thickly at the flash of their leader's eyes. He knew that look. It was one of those gleams his students always had when they had thought up yet another 'genius' thing to make his day shittier than it had already been. The one-eyed imbecile had better compensate him well for this.

"Why, the various forms of viagra of course, Iruka-kun," came the smooth reply.

Some types of silence, in Kakashi's all the while growing list, were the ones one experienced just before the storm broke.

"..The WHAT?!" Iruka's cheeks exploded bright red and for a moment the other occupants in the room wondered if the now beetroot-red teacher would faint due to the abruptly unbalanced blood circulation, whereas Kakashi's eye had snapped open and attentive, bordering on the lines of very uncomfortable shock and mild interest, as if the man couldn't decide whether to make himself deaf with an accurate lightning bolt or to patiently hear the rest.

"You heard me, sensei," Tsunade chuckled at the absolute look of mortification passing the astoundingly red features of the chuunin. She would have all the fun she wanted with this. "You see, we learned that when the elements of two persons mingle without the control of a cast jutsu that would give them the wanted form and dynamics, even for the briefest times, the result is the increasing of one's libido. Although I do feel that we need to study that phenomenon a bit more, since it might also be a very personally projected reaction between individuals. But, what made the whole thing even more interesting wasn't the act itself, but the rather..selective nature of it, which we witnessed the most exceptional way," the busty woman purred and directed her eyes towards Iruka who now seemed to contemplate the challenge of scorching himself to death with his lukewarm tea. Kakashi had sat up completely and directed a keen look at the very much blushing Shizune who gave Tsunade pleading looks of letting her leave the room before all hell broke loose. Not that she was given that luxury, as her superior's smile radiated clear enjoyment over their situation. Tsunade was hell-bent on getting her money's worth back from the pained struggles the two men had put her through, and she seemed inclined to take everyone else down with her.

"...It was only Iruka-sensei who got the reaction."

As Kakashi later added on his list, some silences appeared to have a nature of inevitable doom in them.

Even the daylight itself cowered from the silent chuunin.

"...You mean to tell me..with all due respect, Tsunade-sama...that..I...on electricity?" The shell-shocked features were a new addition for Kakashi's archives of the teacher's many faces, but for what he could tell when reflecting his own facial muscles with the, well, crimson ones, his own masked expression wasn't far behind resembling the chuunin's.

"If you mean to say 'erection' then yes, you did have one, sensei," Tsunade countered calmly and then pensively scratched her chin. "Well, several, in fact-"

"SEVERAL?!"

"...Exactly how many, Tsunade-sama?"

"I lost the count after four...any numbers to throw, Shizune?" Tsunade looked over to her assistant. Shizune seemed to have stopped moving altogether, and if the things were to continue at their current direction, she was undoubtedly in a need of a handkerchief any minute. "Well, never mind, the point is that he got them and you didn't, brat. I'm curious to know why."

"Maa, were they at least good ones? I have a reputation to maintain-"

"Could you two please stop discussing about my accidental hard-ons?!"

"Now, now, Iruka-kun. Don't be so bashful. After all, every professional shinobi need to know just how big and treacherous opponent they're facing."

"Or nonexistent and harmless."

Any other time Tsunade would have been immensely proud of her chuunin who could single-handedly outrank an elite jounin, but as she and Shizune both dislodged the brown fingers from strangling the pale throat and forced the swinging fists back and away from the masked face, she now understood why others had so heavily questioned her decision for the shinobi best suited for the research mission.

The well-manicured hands pulled back from two well-trained chests and Tsunade gave a pleased hum at the new seals embedding in them.

"...Now it should be sufficient, but let me know if any of the previous symptoms come back and we'll have another look at you," Tsunade said with a smile as she watched the faint blue glows of the seals settle inside the two shinobi sitting in front of her. "If it feels too much then tell that as well, since we still need to keep this research in reliable condition in order to use the information later on." She stood up from the floor and stretched her sore muscles, already planning on soaking in a nice, long hot bath after she got back to her quarters. Never mind looking younger than her age, she felt more than justified to act like an old hag from time to time when it suited her goals.

"...We will, Hokage-sama," Iruka muttered with a scowl and watched as the light died out on his chest and the familiar feeling of heavier muscles crept over his body. His muscles didn't ache as much than before, but the familiar feeling of them being used in harsher ways than usual was still there. That and the subtle tingling of new chakra flowing through him was an interesting sensation to say the least.

"Do we still focus on taijutsu, though?" Kakashi asked and nodded his thanks at Shizune who finished up healing his left cheek. Even while recovering, Iruka's fists and fury were clearly not to be underestimated.

"That would be the wisest, since offering too many factors to your fighting might also create a false effect on your development. It would be the best if you two would reflect your matches even more closely than before and focus better on the mandatory stretches." The blond woman nodded at the copy-nin and then her eyes lightened up as she remembered something. "Ah, that reminds me, have you tried out the massage oil I sent you the other day?"

Kakashi wasn't really sure how much more maiming a recently healed body could actually take.

Still, he shook his head in answer all the same and resigned himself for the yelling of the century, as he could sense the tensing on the chuunin next to him. Despite knowing that in most cases he was right no matter how things were viewed, the silver-haired jounin became grudgingly conscious that their earlier brainstorming over the existence of the tiny oily substance wasn't going to get an understanding response from the other party.

The rising anger didn't even bother to stay hidden in the woman's voice. "Care to explain why?"

For her small surprise, it appeared that the over twenty-year-old professional killers could quite easily resemble two fearful three-year-olds.

"..We, erm, saw that the stretches were sufficient enough, Hoka-" Iruka's voice died out at the furious look directed at him. Damn them and their naive thoughts of getting away with their plan. He felt like the eight-year-old he was when he was caught pranking for the first and the last time by the Sandaime Hokage. He couldn't sit properly for a week after that, and not that others ever needed to know, his left ass cheek still gave a dully throbbing ghost of the once stinging pain every time he visited the old man's grave. For some reason, the ache was back as he stared at the seething Godaime just a couple of feet away from him and the surprisingly silent genius bastard.

"If I may remind you, Iruka-sensei, those seals in that book are made to match your needs and the needs of this mission you're trusted to complete without any further complications nor disobedience towards my orders. Should either one of you fail to do so, you'll answer for your actions directly to me, the following violent punishment included. Do you understand me, shinobi?"

The hastily nodded respond from both men did lessen her urge to slap them to the next month.

Except.

A sharp slap sent Iruka tumbling on his side to the futon and Kakashi jumped to the side to avoid being hit by the falling man. He saw the utterly aghast look in the dark eyes and looked inquiringly up at their Hokage who crossed her hands under her ample cleavage. "That was just the footnote, sensei. I did have a word with the ANBU who neglected to inform me about your previous collapse and trust me, he'll think twice before doing that again. I suggest you do the same." Then the woman turned on her heels and nodded at Shizune who bowed lightly at the men before teleporting away. Tsunade sighed and then cast a last look at the duo who flinched a bit back from the woman.

"I'll be off now, since the other things in the village need my attention as well. I'd advice you to rest for the day and then proceed with your training tomorrow. I'll come and check on you as soon as I can. Meanwhile, carry on with your mission." She stopped forming her seals and gave a bright grin at the men. "And Hatake, take separate shower turns for a couple of days, we don't want any repetition of the previous night. Oh, and Iruka-kun, watch out for any thunder, will you." Her smirk vanished from sight as she completed the seals and disappeared.

It took them a while to understand that they were no longer in direct physical danger, and both the jounin and the chuunin slowly released the breaths they had been holding. Iruka groaned and rolled on his back on the futon, the teacher rubbing tentatively his painfully throbbing cheek. That punch was definitely going to leave a mark. "Oh, hell. For a moment I thought we were done for."

Kakashi chuckled and laid down next to the other man, looking lazily up at the ceiling once again. "Same here, sensei. You almost were, though."

Iruka gave a heavy sigh, which turned into a large yawn stretching his jaws. "True, but it's good to know that the stupid ANBU got his share as well. It doesn't pay off to trust those guys, apparently."

"Well, I wouldn't say that. You seem to trust me well enough, sensei," replied the equally tired yet amused drawl next to his ear.

"Sure. Having an annual ulcer is always fun," Iruka slurred with a lazy chuckle at the silver-haired nin's mocking growl. His body felt increasingly heavy and unwilling to move even an inch, apparently the strain their systems had gone through was more than they were capable of working with without the proper amount of sleep. "..I think it would be the best if we got some sleep now that things seem to have settled...Get off my bed, Kakashi-san."

Only light snoring met his sleepily whispered words.

Chapter Text

As the gradually increasing noises that swept through the once silent streets put an end to the withdrawing night, the citizens of the hidden village of Konoha once more indulged themselves in their morning routines. As on the countless mornings before, the children ran down the streets towards their schools or dashed for the favorite toy before being swept back to the breakfast table, as the adults, both civilian and shinobi alike, after more or less well-rested nights, set their minds towards the dawning day and its obligations, with more or less enthusiastic moods.

With her village in the hands of the capable subordinates, the blonde woman sighed tiredly as her body sunk under the warm water. The creases on her face softened and her mind pushed the last night's worry and fear away as she knew all to be more or less in order in the small light gray house a few blocks away from her quarters...

...where an abrupt sneeze escaped the dark-skinned shinobi who was curled on his bed.

The dark eyes peeled slowly open and scanned the surroundings warily through the sleepy haze as the drowsy man sniffed tiredly and rubbed his itching nose. He felt warm and content, which was a bit odd, since he didn't usually feel as such when having slept in his bed. That and he had also apparently slept very heavily, that also something he usually wasn't either capable of achieving or downright avoiding out of pure instinct. His sleepy mind dismissed the otherwise alarming clues concerning his current situation as a tiny yawn tore out of his mouth and his eyes fell shut, not that he resisted one bit as his limp body felt obliged to offer him a valid argument for staying in bed. Opting to lull himself back to the delightful new-found world of sleeping like a log, the academy sensei took in a deep, content breath and stretched his arms while he rolled onto his other side with yet another yawn stretching his jaw -

Only to choke in surprise and roll hastily back over to the other direction, and thus, in all his disoriented and ungraceful glory, the tan man fell promptly out his bed with a dull thump. Regretfully, his mind hadn't been yet awake enough to supply him with the thought of having already slept on the edge of his futon, therefore there not being any more of the mattress left on the side he had retreated in order to get away from the unknown, large warm object that had contacted with his body. Hindsight had never been his cup of tea.

While growling and cursing under his breath due to the ego-bruising encounter with the hardwood floor, the dark-haired shinobi whipped his spinning head back up to give a better scowl at what exactly had the suicidal nerve to infiltrate his personal space.

...Which happened to be a snoozing jounin.

The perplexed chuunin stared long and hard at the napping form of a silver-haired male spread very cozily on the bed, the masked man having hogged up almost over half of the narrow mattress with his lean limbs stretched out in every direction available. Slowly, Iruka picked himself up from the floor and sat down cross-legged to face the lightly snoring elite snuggled up on the wrong futon. The pair of dark eyes narrowed into thin, ominous slits as the recent occurrences were slowly put into their places in the chuunin's gradually awakening head.

Collapsing chakra pathways.

Frenzied elements.

Slapping Hokages.

Instructions to take better care of themselves.

Despite counting the happened facts several times it still didn't add up to explain why the heck there was a jounin in his bed.

An almost silent, wide yawn stretching the dark fabric snapped the teacher's attention back at the slumbering nuisance, who seemed to make it his case to conquer the whole bed now that the chuunin wasn't occupying his side of it. The pale arms and legs stretched out gracefully before settling into more comfortable angles all over the bed, a tiny content huff of breath leaving the masked lips. It appeared that the infamous man of thousand jutsus was also a master in the art of bed-snatching.

At least the man didn't kick in his sleep.

The teacher glared hard at the slumbering figure and tried to form a plan to make the man bolt away from his linen. Of course, he knew their beds were given by their Hokage and were used only until the mission ended, but Iruka was a man with a rather strict sense of marking and guarding his belongings, even if only temporarily. Something one seemed to develop after having his bag rigged more than thrice in one week by mini-nins at the beginning of the teaching career. The dark eyes turned to regard the jounin's side of the room, the now fully functioning mind categorizing and examining the seen property. He could go with the classical case of boxed-up porn, but there was no guarantee for Kakashi to wake up enough to really understand that Iruka wasn't a missing-nin out on his way to make the man's life miserable. They didn't carry any weapons with them when they entered the house, but based on his experiences during their acquaintance, Iruka was already fairly well informed on what the silver-haired sleepy-ass was capable of. The man could undoubtedly kill even with a single strand of pubic hair if motivated hard enough, and Iruka was certain that his ego couldn't handle his last glimpse of the living world being a thick, curly piece of hair struck into any vital points of his body.

That would be an embarrassing reason to haunt people later on.

Messing with the man's masks was definitely out of the question as well, if the previous incident was considered. Besides, the teacher didn't want to anger the other the first thing in the morning, since, as annoying as the thought was, Iruka had started to enjoy very much the mornings they spent together. Not that they ever could leave the snippy comments and jabs out of their communication, but for them at least trying to have a civil conversation over breakfast for more than ten minutes seemed to suffice well enough. An exasperated sigh left the dark lips and Iruka's body slumped in a deflated manner as he faced his defeat on the matter. There was nothing he could legally do to claim his bed back, and there was no way for him to climb next to the faintly snoring man, or even worse, use the pervert's bed to continue sleeping. Kami knew what the porn-driven lecher had done under the covers. On that thought the teacher felt his cheeks and ears set on a fiery blush and he shook his brown-haired head vigorously in order to discard the suddenly surfaced lewd and disturbing images out of his head. What the jounin did in his bed wasn't for him to speculate, nor for his vivid imagination to fill in the blanks.

Kotetsu and his hyper-hormonal horny hoard of buddies were clearly rubbing it off on him.

The dark eyes regarded once more the evenly breathing figure, noting the slightly rumpled dark clothes on the pale body and the subtly wrinkled mask tilted a bit askew on the pale face, as well the pair of closed eyes behind the mussed, silvery mane. Iruka's brows furrowed as he spotted the almost invisible tension on the man's face. It might be that the man was still very worn out, since he hadn't even reacted to the unmasked presence near his head nor the quite loud awakening of the chuunin. The tan cheeks heated up once more as the teacher remembered Godaime's words on how they could have actually avoided the whole thing if he would've just said something about his collapse to Tsunade when she had been there for the first time. He did feel bad for the other man and the thought of it being his fault didn't lessen the queasy feeling that suddenly twisted his gut at the uneasy realization while the first stray rays of light crept inside their room.

He had endangered his mission partner.

He should have known better than to take the ANBU's diagnosis on face value. He was a teacher, for crying out loud! It was one of the most important traits for them to ask for a second opinion before settling for one. For him to disregard Tsunade's expertise and just go with a stranger's basic diagnosis of 'exhaustion'...It was a rookie's mistake, something an instructor of his caliber shouldn't even deign to consider doing. Another, more silent and somber sigh left the dark lips and the dark eyes glanced tiredly at the silent yard, a sliver of the outer world visible between a gap on their bedroom and training room doors. He should have voiced out his doubts of something being wrong when Kakashi seemed to feel out of breath more than usual after a couple of matches.

He should have been more aware, as he was trusted to be.

The dark hands pressed hard on the temples and Iruka closed his eyes to take a few calming breaths. It was useless to sulk on the matter now. The lazy bastard was safe and well asleep (if the happy sniffling against Iruka's pillow was any indication) and the teacher himself felt way better than the previous day. If they now took their health issues more seriously than earlier and reported their progression better to the Hokage, they should be able to prevent any other similar dramas from happening. He would need to observe the pale man more closely, though, since Iruka highly doubted that the man would voluntarily tell if anything was wrong with him.

A low grumble beneath the mask and the following session of pillow-nuzzling pulled the young chuunin out of his melancholic thoughts, and despite all they have been through so far in the terms of total humiliation, injured muscles and bruised egos plus the constant fraying of nerves, a soft smile crept on Iruka's lips at the sight of the blissfully sleeping older nin.

He should do something more constructive than pouting on the bedroom floor.

He owed that to the man.

Looking at the results, he gave himself a pleased smile.

The kitchen cupboards were cleaned both from the inside and outside, the spills and crumbs carefully wiped away and their beloved stashes of coffee and tea were orderly put on the counter next to the cup and the mug. Even the coffeemaker had been thoroughly cleaned and washed, and the bubbling sound of boiling water filled the otherwise silent ambiance in the open kitchen. Iruka nodded, pleased with himself and then took the cleaning bucket and rags towards the bathroom, which was deemed to be the next target on his list.

There was no better method for clearing the mind than thorough housecleaning.

The steaming tea cup awaited him on the terrace while Iruka took back in the tatami mats after having aired them on the terrace and given them the last wipes with a cloth before putting them back to their places. After the training room was finished and there was nothing else left, except for the dim bedroom he didn't feel like intruding since the older nin was still sleeping, the teacher sat down on the warm terrace and gave a small yawn. Four hours of cleaning and he already felt sleepy. Apparently his body hadn't recovered as much as it first looked like. Nothing a decent cup of well-brewed jasmine tea couldn't fix, and with a happy smile the chuunin took a slow sip of his first morning tea.

The slight disturbance in the air was all the announcement the teacher received, and the chuunin couldn't help but purse his lips in displeased manner.

Damn with the masked men and their lousy timings.

"...Good morning, ANBU-san," the teacher said and the dark eyes slowly turned to face a white porcelain mask and the silent elite wearing it. The ANBU's posture was as calm and laid back as ever, but it wasn't enough to fool Iruka to dismiss the ever so light tensing of the black op's body at the smoothly said words. Tsunade had indeed had a discussion with the elite, and if the previous slap still faintly tingling on his cheek was anything to go by, Iruka was fairly sure that for once the special assassin was grateful for wearing a mask. "Have you been well?"

A barely visible, wary nod was all the answer he got. Even the snort was absent that time. Either the man had undoubtedly heard about Iruka's sadistic wrath or he was far too transparent with his current facial expression. Not that he felt any obligation to hide anything from the masked nin. Nobody interrupted his first morning tea repetitively without repercussions.

"I see. You've been a rather big pain in my ass from the start, you know. Not for the first time, you come and interrupt my morning tea without any consideration of the appropriate time and place. Then the other day you and the other dick stripped me down to my boxers and ogled me kami knows for how long while I was unconscious and unable to defend myself..." Iruka continued as he slowly stood up with his tea in hand and eyed the armored nin with a intensive look, a look that took a more malevolent glint as he spotted the tiny sign of the man being uneasy in his company. Sure, the man could deck him the instant he was deemed as a threat and he respected their ranks for keeping the others safe in the village, but damn it, he had a lot to vent, and by all seven hells the silent elite was getting his share of it. The high cheeks flushed the tiniest bit at his next words and Iruka couldn't help but feel that he was also scolding himself on some level. Forcing the embarrassment down, he lowered his voice into a more intimidating tone. "...And then you go and not only give us a wrong diagnosis but also fail to inform our Hokage on the matter of me collapsing after our match, which, quite frankly, is rather inconsiderate and unprofessional. I'm sure you have been informed what we have been forced through due to that tiny slip in information, and with all due respect, I'm tempted to continue where Tsunade-sama left off."

The man sure could stand rigid.

He had to give the masked nin credit. Not many had survived this far without breaking down under the scrutinizing glare. Then again, seeing the ANBU survive his trademark scowl did enlighten why the currently knocked-out jounin didn't even blink under the same circumstances without the added decibels. Not breaking the eye contact, the already miffed chuunin took a long sip of his tea and cocked an eyebrow at the irritating guest. "Should I order you detention? Make you write an apology for giving a wrong diagnosis for three hundred times? Take you on my lap for good spanking for being such a naughty little ANBU you obviously are?"

The sharp twitch of the armored shoulders spoke clearly about the man's total surprise towards the chuunin's unexpected choice of words. At this point Iruka had to hide his lower face behind his cup and bite his cheek in order to smother the rising snicker. He had way too much fun in confusing people. "Although I'm pretty sure that that particular punishment has already been served, since putting some weight on that right leg of yours seems to be quite unappealing at the moment." Not that he could ever be sure of it, but the alarmed shift of posture after his words was telling enough. If he didn't know better, he could have taken the assassin as one of his students being told off about their misbehavior. Maybe Hokage-sama was right and they always remained as children, no matter what rank or age they represented.

If that was the case then Konoha must have been in need for a hell of a good tawse [1] for centuries by now.

Deeming that he had spoken his mind sufficiently enough, for now, he gave the ANBU a genuine, small smile. "You can inform Tsunade-sama that we're doing fine. Kakashi-san's still asleep and I suspect that he won't wake up until the next day. As for myself, I'm feeling much better, if rather tired at the moment. Otherwise I'd say that we're good to continue our mission when he wakes up. And don't worry, I'm not one to hold grudges when people make mistakes, since this was something we all failed to predict." He took the final sip of the tea and cast a mockingly innocent glance at the now more relaxed assassin. "...Alas, of course, I can't promise that for your senpai." The visible urge jerking the man's hands for making the signs of the teleportation jutsu made his day.

Speaking of which.

Iruka pointed the man with his index finger, a gesture which obviously pressed a button or two within the ANBU's system according to the tiny, appalled jerk of the masked face. "That reminds me, I do have a small request for you, if you could be kind enough to assist with it." After the fleeting moment of considering, a brief nod was given, and the teacher answered it with his own. "Excellent. Please wait a second." With that the teacher left the confused elite on the terrace as he went to the kitchen to retrieve a paper that appeared to be a list of some kind. "Since I can't leave the premises before the mission is complete, can I trust you to deliver these ingredients to me by this evening?" The ANBU took the offered list and the eyes beneath the white mask scanned the written items before lifting to give a flat stare at the smiling dark-skinned man before them.

"Even one snort of disobedience and he'll be the one greeting you during your next visit, ANBU-san," came the quiet threat served with a sunny grin.

As the smoke from the rushed jutsu vanished, a smug smirk found its way on his face.

He should clearly play the 'Pissed-Off Copy-Nin' card more often.

A small, black notebook was dropped on a dark-clothed lap followed by a heavy sigh. Iruka rubbed his drooping eyes and turned to observe the sunny yard as he took yet another sip from his tea. Having the modest lunch finished, the brown-haired man leaned against the wall beam, or what was left of it after what seemed like the doings of one particular blonde healer with impressive right hook. He still had yet to collect the other half from the yard where it was still stuck to the ground in a rather extraordinary angle. A small groan escaped his mouth and he slid further down the beam, ending in a half-laying position on the wooden terrace floor with his hands crossed over his chest. The dark eyes shot a look at the clear sky above, the vast plane of blue expanding over his dear village and their training house.

The ANBU had delivered the needed ingredients in a rush, and considering the record amount of time it took the man to complete his task, Iruka was pleasantly surprised to verify that indeed all items on the list had been taken care of in such a short time. Threatening to unleash the sharingan user on the others' necks was definitely worth the second try. The nimble hands fiddled with the notebook resting on his slacks as a frustrated huff left his lips. He still hadn't reached any breakthrough with the clever seals, no matter how many times he had thought that finally he may have gotten it right. That and Iruka wasn't happy to admit that he was facing an infuriatingly unsettling situation.

It was only past noon and he was already getting out of his mind.

More precisely, he was bored to the bones.

Shikamaru would be shocked to learn that his former sensei was indeed capable of that.

The dark eyes cast a sidelong glance at the closed bedroom doors on the other side of the training room. The house had never before been so silent during their residency, neither had it felt so hollow before. A tiny pout twisted Iruka's lips and he fixed the closed doors with an annoyed scowl. Did the other man really intend to stay out cold all the way until the next day? The teacher didn't have much experience with recovering from chakra depletion, but being well-educated on shinobis' physiology, he did know it to be highly unlikely for anyone to be able to recover without any form of nutrition. With that thought the pensive eyes swept over the remnants of his light lunch.

...Well, he did need something to do.

The tray gave an apologetic clink as it was put back on the counter with heavy hands, and beside that the only sound in the sunny kitchen was a defeated thunk as the tan forehead met the cupboard door.

That certainly was a waste of both time and effort.

Iruka had waited the jounin to smell the food and then wake up for a good hour, keeping the food as close as he dared to approach a sleeping elite, but all he managed to arouse was a murmur on something concerning snowballs and missing slippers before the older nin had promptly turned away to face the wall, leaving the temperamental chuunin sending imaginative daggers at his back. Hell, the bastard didn't even sneeze, no matter how close the food was brought to his masked nose. Never before had he wished to own an evil mind enough to just yank the irritating mask off the asshole's face and shove the food down the man's throat, or better yet, the obviously useless nostrils.

With an irritated growl, the tiny dish of vegetable curry was thrown to the fridge for later devouring. Then the dark eyebrows cocked at the sudden hypothesis forming in the fuming chuunin's mind. Maybe he really did damage the man's sense of smell when he accidentally broke his nose. He quickly discarded the passing idea, there was no possibility for Kakashi to carry a permanent damage since they healed him well and fast after the unfortunate encounter with Iruka's fist. Then a far more plausible explanation popped into his mind, and the kitchen's atmosphere took a turn for worse as the glaring eyes narrowed their look at the sliver of silver hair visible through the doors.

It could be that the prick was playing him.

Iruka felt his jaw tighten up and his teeth settle into a tight grit as his temper flared at the current thought.

If that was the case, he would soon have a violently butchered jounin in his bed.

All he needed was the verification for the justified kill.

With quick, silenced steps, the chuunin strode back to the bedroom and stood over the target of his currently ill mood. The temperamental man knelt down next to the still figure with trained ease and leaned over, eying all the visible information he could possibly get for busting the older man for tricking his fellow shinobi. The posture of the man was calm and still, but with an air of a relaxed sleeper instead of a predator luring its prey. The even breathing was deep enough to border on the line between REM state or a person just about waking up, but the eye movements clearly indicated towards the man seeing dreams rather than gaining consciousness. What was with the twitching eyebrow, though? As he leaned closer for a better look, a sudden wave of odd tremors rushed up his spine and his palms and neck started to sweat unexpectedly.

He never saw the hand coming before his vision tilted drastically.

As the suddenly blurry seconds cleared out, Iruka was painfully aware of three things.

For one, it appeared that the sleeping jounins still have their instincts and reflexes very well not only intact but definitely in full function as well, which basically meant that their bodies were on alert on their own. Secondly, Kakashi was not only deeply knocked out but also having a quite vivid dream, which, as Iruka now to his utter horror had found out, made him a grabby sleeper.

As the furiously blushing teacher took in his own position with his neck under the jounin's steel-hard arm and his chin resting against the dark-clothed chest, thus his face being way too close to the other's, while the rest of his body was frozen on all fours in a significantly obscene posture next to the man's bed, he was also very efficiently informed on the subtle buzzing sound wafting around both of them and the sudden pulse of high-charged electricity that had ferociously surged through his body the moment the older man's arm had wrapped around his neck.

Thirdly, he had cum into his pants.

Not that Iruka had any time to dwell on the mortifying thought, since the alarmingly familiar tingling of electricity dancing on his skin started again, and despite ruining his pants a moment ago, he could feel his lower anatomy stir quite eagerly at the given stimulation. Not wanting to experience any sort of repeat performance of the earlier, Iruka started to pull and twist in the hold in order to dislodge himself from the pale arm. His whole body had started to sweat like being hit by a heatwave and the continuous waves of tremors washing up and down his body gave him enough of a terrifying clue on what was happening.

Never mind being on an important mission, he was going to kill the ones responsible in more ways than one if he survived this.

Accompanied with a steady flow of curses, growls, groans and poorly stifled gasps and whimpers, the chuunin trashed against the hold he had been unfortunate (or plain idiotic in his own rapidly forming opinion) to get himself into, and to his further shock he wasn't able to lift nor turn the heavy, well-trained arm even an inch to slip away. Apparently the jounin's strength wasn't deterred by the sleep either. Iruka's panic grew in the same speed with the throbbing erection, and the dark eyes darted frantically between his rebelling groin and the sleeping jounin's face. Sweat drops fell into his eyes and he could feel a prominent puddle form under both his clenching jaw and the parts of his upper body sharing the unwanted contact with the older nin's. This could not happen to him. This was ridiculous. This was-

The prickling sensation of lightning bolt charging the air around them tripled his urgency to get the hell away from the other man. The strong legs pushed and twisted against the floor and both the knees and toes slipped and scraped against the increasingly wet wooden surface in a vain attempt to get enough friction to pull the sturdy body from under the hold of the grabbing limb while the chuunin's hands pushed and tried to lift the pale arm. As a hefty drop of precum smeared against his boxers' fabric amidst his struggles, which only served to make him buck his hips on reflex, a quiet keen arose from the back of the tan throat. The moment he caught himself actually considering the pros and cons of taking care of his hard and dripping problem while being held by someone easily dubbed as his arch nemesis, Iruka was more than ready to scream his lungs out in desperate frustration.

"Maa...quiet."

At those two gruffly slurred words, the whole body of one stressed-out academy teacher went stiff on the spot, the breath being caught in his throat and his wide eyes staring at the masked face and the closed eyes above the dark fabric. The gods had to be kidding him. With a baited breath, the agonizingly aroused chuunin observed the stirring jounin, the seconds turning into eternity in the panicked man's mind as he waited for the imminent opening of the fluttering, lone gray eye. He would never heard the end of it if the other man caught him like this. He could never again face the man properly, not to mention ever sparring with him anymore. At that thought Iruka felt his blood turn cold as the previous day with its discussions came to his mind.

Tsunade would never accept his request to abort the mission based on an ill-timed boner.

As the chuunin was preparing himself for the shameful encounter with his superior, suddenly the arm lifted from his burning neck. Seizing the heavenly opportunity to escape, Iruka hastily pulled back and scrambled five feet away from the older man , only to watch in puzzlement as the S-class elite flopped on his side, scratched his masked nose, sighed tiredly and began sniffling again without a trace of being even slightest awake during the tiny escapade. As suddenly as it had appeared, the buzzing sound faded away as the skin-prickling charge of electricity died from the air, leaving the two men in the bedroom with only the sounds of breathless panting and even breathing mixing together.

Still his eyes trained on the jounin to detect if anything else was about to happen, the previously tanned, now immensely flushed man scooted backwards to settle against the wall opposite the sleeping elite. His pulse was beating erratically, it was hard to get enough air into his lungs, his skin felt feverish and wet, his whole body was aching and throbbing badly, and not only were his clothes thoroughly soaked but also disgustingly sticky in certain areas. On the plus side, his pants were no longer four times too small.

He needed a cold shower to drown himself into.

It was noon. No, way past noon judging from the angle of the light, the narrow, gray eye observed under a heavy lid. Maybe evening already.

At least the loud birds had quieted.

Taking a slow, deeper inhale, Kakashi awakened his senses fully to take in his current situation. He was in bed, he was quite drowsy and there was a strange damp spot on his chest. He was fairly sure he couldn't drool that much in his sleep. Or sweat, even though there was a faint trace of manly odor surrounding him. Either way, he had slept well, perhaps even a bit too well in his professional opinion. This mission was clearly messing with his previous training. Not that he minded much, since if he recalled correctly, the past few missions did leave him unhealthily sleep-deprived. Plus he recognized the familiar ache of chakra depletion. Now why did he ache as such? As his mind supplied him with the memories of the previous hours, a quiet, thoughtful hum flowed past his lips. If he was meant to rest the last of the exhaustion away, he didn't feel like arguing with the offered permission to slack for a few more hours, and with that happy conclusion in mind, the masked nin pressed his head more firmly against the pillow-

He didn't have a pillow.

The earlier tiredness gone in a flash, the silver-haired man bolted up on the mattress and stared incredulously at the lump of feathers and cotton still sporting the dint from having his head on it. His pillow had been annihilated by the angry Hokage if he remembered correctly, and as his gray eye slowly made its way towards the second futon laid a few feet away, the chilling sense of dread settled in the copy-nin's gut as his sight fell upon a familiar collection of explicit literature piled up next to the mattress he didn't occupy at that moment. He had slept in a wrong bed.

In any other occasion, it usually didn't include him being fully dressed up.

Which led to another, more pressing question creeping into his head.

Where was the owner of the invaded futon?

Since he didn't spot the man in their bedroom, it didn't take much to deduct that the teacher was somewhere else. Not that Kakashi ever felt enthusiastic to actively pursue his doom, the jounin slowly stood up and walked on wobbly legs to the bedroom doors leading to the corridor. He peeked his head around the door and looked down the dim corridor leading to their kitchen, which also happened to be chuuninless. Since there was no sound of shower coming from the bathroom, the last three options left were the toilet, the terrace or the training room.

Knowing the demon's obvious love for sunlight, the terrace was the most apparent option.

But first, he needed some caffeine in his system.

Shuffling on silent feet towards his priced source of the black nectar, the older nin started to feel something persistently picking on his interest. He halted in the corridor and the sharp eye took a moment to regard the scenery before him. It was all oddly...fresh. A trace of fresh, citrus-y scent wafted to his nose, and as his eye swept over the kitchen's surfaces, the pale legs carried the man backwards to their bathroom door. Carefully, the copy-nin opened the door ajar and peered in, only to be greeted with the same scent accompanied with something much more distinct he couldn't currently place his finger on, and the room was way neater than he remembered from the previous time they had showered. The check on the toilet was the last confirmation for Kakashi's suspicion.

Their house had been cleaned.

Humming a more cheerful tone, the Sharingan user walked once again towards the empty kitchen, noting absently that not only were the surfaces well-scrubbed, his coffee tins had been organized and his mug was neatly placed next to them. As he opened the coffee maker's lid to pour in some water, his surprises seemed to continue as he realized the machine had been washed and wiped as well.

He was pretty sure he had the currently missing younger nin to thank for that as well.

After a second of staring the kitchen machine in stunned silence, a bright chuckle escaped the masked lips and Kakashi shook his head in amused manner. Never had he thought to see the day when Iruka would tend to his coffeemaker. The tan man was a tea addict to the grave and it entertained his mind to imagine the other trying to figure out the wonders of coffee brewing technology, moreover to find the best ways to clean up the gadget. Not that Kakashi hadn't enjoyed immensely the coffee the man offered him from time to time during their mornings. Either the teacher had memorized the machine's manual and the instructions on the tins for a good pot of coffee, or the bugger was possessing some hidden talents on that field. For the more argued reasons the first option was the most expected in the geniuses mind.

"...Kakashi-san!"

Speak of the devil.

Having set the beverage brewing, Kakashi turned towards the surprised call coming from his right. He was rewarded with the sight of a wide-eyed chuunin staring at him from the threshold of the terrace, looking as if the man was about to lunge at him. The idea of him sleeping on the man's bed flashed in his mind and for a fleeting second the copy-nin hesitated between staying still or fleeing fast from the obvious tongue-lashing he was about to receive. To his surprise, though, instead of being filled to the brim with utter irritation, the dark eyes reflected visible worry as the teacher reached him with a couple of hurried steps. The small, hesitant smile was enough to make him worry for his health, though.

Smiling Umino meant black-eyed Hatake.

"When did you wake up? How are you feeling? Are you hurting anywhere?"

Way for the chuunin to make him feel like a two-year-old. To stop the mother-hen of a sensei from rambling any further and pulling his jounin's ego down any more than it already was, Kakashi gave the man a bright smile with his eyes and waved his hand dismissively, enjoying the pleasing sound of the man's jaw snapping shut. "Maa, sensei, I'm not dead, as you can see. In fact, I'm feeling surprisingly well. But thank you for asking. Although I don't mind the extra care if you feel up for nursing this one little copy-nin all better," he finished with a suggesting wink, putting a very efficient silence between them two in the kitchen.

Then again, so did the worry in the chuunin's eyes get quickly replaced with the more familiar, fiery annoyance, and to his interested note, Kakashi saw the brown ponytail bristle visibly as the younger man's feathers got ruffled.

"Get bent, pervert. Have you eaten yet?"

As the sky dyed bright orange, Kakashi watched it from the terrace with a fresh cup of coffee in hand. His ears registered the bustling sounds coming from the kitchen where the chuunin was preparing their supper, the man having thrown him out and insisting on managing their food by himself. That may have also been the result of one dirty joke too many about chuunin housewives, but that was a trivial detail. Iruka was a good cook and he wasn't going to complain for getting fed without effort.

He felt like Pakkun suddenly.

"Here you go, I tried to wake you up earlier to eat some, but it should be good even when reheated," the mellow voice said next to him as Iruka stepped to the terrace and set the supper between them, a good-smelling curry of some sort. A smile found its way to the masked lips at the teacher's words, especially when presented with a rather nice blush on the scarred cheeks.

"Sorry to sleep so heavily, sensei. I'm sure it's all very good since you're the one who cooked it."

Correction. A very nice, deep blush with a hint of cherry on the scarred cheeks.

"...Is that so..? Well then, I guess I should make you cook the main dishes a few times as well, if you're about to grow so lazy in the art of cooking that you're starting to compliment my food, Kakashi-san." Despite his face feeling like on fire, Iruka managed to smirk teasingly at the older man. He did catch the compliment for what it was, but to decrease the heat on his face called for drastic measures. The mockingly dramatic eye-roll made him chuckle, for he was happy to see that the man was feeling well enough to take part in their teasing. He gave the man his curry and they ate in comfortable silence, both shinobis lost in their thoughts of counting both the angle and strength needed for both splitting a wooden beam with a diameter of fifteen inches and making half of it land in a surprising angle on the ground with apparently half of it stuck in the soil.

"..They had a rough night apparently."

"It seems so, Kakashi-san."

"Did you already examine it?"

"Based on my calculations she has stood diagonally towards it and used her right fist. Although, I wouldn't put it past her to continue the punch with her left, as you can see the more stomped ends of the splinters on the sunken half and compare them to the rest next to you", Iruka said calmly and pointed at the split wooden beam next to the copy-nin, who silently examined the damage. "How on earth she didn't take part of the roof with it is still a small wonder, though."

"She must have punched horizontally, but for the beam to split rather than get wholly dislocated from the porch..." Kakashi murmured, his brain counting different possibilities for the phenomenon.

"It had a small crack in it already, right below the splitting point. See here", having finished his curry, Iruka scooted on the other side of the jounin and ran his finger across a faintly visible line crossing the side of the beam, "it was already weak from this seam and the heavy punch had hit most likely just above it for it to break so clean."

"Ah, that explains it. Well spotted, sensei," came the slightly amused compliment by the low voice.

"Oh shut up, you-," Iruka turned his face to glare at the other-

Only that the half an inch between his and the other's face was making it increasingly hard to concentrate on his thoughts that seemed to have vanished from sight for undefined time. The unwavering, narrow gray eye looking right back at his own wasn't helping either. As the faint scent of coffee and woods hit his nose, Iruka suddenly jerked his head back and to his shock hit it against the broken beam behind him, his eyes watering up in instant at the painful throb in his skull. A pained curse was hissed through his lips as he cradled his head in his hands, but before he realized fully what was happening, pale hands had taken a hold on his head and a deep chuckle was heard a bit closer than a second ago.

"Watch it, sensei. You may have more sense in you than Naruto, but that's easy to lose if you keep hitting you head like that," Kakashi said and patted the furiously blushing man's head. "It wouldn't do to lose such a bright teacher from our village, now would it?" The sight before him was unheard of, with the intelligent and cautious chuunin nursing his dark-haired head, all flustered and subdued. The setting sun colored the red cheekbones with a hint of gold, and out of strange urge taking control of his actions for the briefest moment, Kakashi brushed the dark strands with his masked mouth. Suddenly he felt his gut throw a somersault as a scent all too familiar to him attacked his sensitive nose and for the shortest second he lost himself into his thoughts.

In retrospect, he had been trained to stay constantly alert for a reason.

The minute the hard skull of the chuunin teacher collided with his already countless times abused masked chin and his vision swam from the sheer pain shooting through his own head, Kakashi let out a yelp of pain and relocated his hands from the dark hair to his masked face to keep his teeth and jaw from falling off. He did register a groan of pain from the vicinity of the other but decided to concentrate on his own agony for a minute and in his desperate attempts to keep the scarred eye from weeping. This was humiliating.

For a long moment, the two adult shinobi, a chuunin and a jounin, both seen as two of the best among their peers, held their hurting heads in heavy, thick, and overly embarrassed silence.

Resigning himself with a hellish migraine for the rest of the night, Iruka looked up at the other man, not really sure what he was hoping to see. Whatever it had been, a teary-eyed copy-nin was not on that list, though. Kakashi was clutching at his mask as if his life depended on it, and the minute their eyes met the thundering eye was squinted tightly shut, either from the pain or the sheer panicked try to prevent Iruka from seeing the tears leaking out of the dark eye. He had been already quite shocked from the extraordinary actions of the other, so seeing the man weep after getting a bone-shattering hit to his jaw was just a logical continuation on his growing list of strange things happening to them. Setting his own hurting head aside, the teacher slowly sat on his knees and lowered his voice into soothing hush. "You want me to take a look at it, Kakashi-san?"

"I'mma'ight," came the muffled answer with a head shake.

Iruka let out a mental groan at the man's antics. Why did they all think him to be best suited for the egoistic bastard? "No you're not, I can see it from here. Let me see, you may need healing-"

"I 'aid I'mm'a'ight!" Kakashi snapped and fended the reaching hands. He was already focusing his chakra to heal part of the damage before fetching a healing bandage, and Iruka's mothering nature was not helping him with his once more hurting ego. He was a grown man, dammit!

"For kami's sake, stop being a complete idiot and let me have a look! I'm not even going to take off your mask, you know that!" By now Iruka could feel his blood boil at the accusing stare he was getting from the other. Damn the jounins and their ridiculous sense of pride!

"That's not the case here, sensei." Ah, finally he could talk without sounding like a toddler. Kakashi fixed he tan man with an even more menacing look over his mask. Not that he doubted the man's words, but he couldn't let him touch his chin. Sparring was fine, but he would be the only one to nurture his face, apart from the medics, that is. His nose was just an exception."I'm not letting you close enough to maim me even more than you already have."

"..What?" Came the now equally pissed question.

"You heard me."

"You could have dodged that, you idiot! You're a jounin!" Iruka's voice was gaining more volume with each passing syllable.

"Maa, forgive me for my insolence towards your hard little head, but has it ever occurred to you that maybe it has something to do with me being trained more likely to kill rather than dodge?" Kakashi knew he was crossing the lines more than it was healthy, but he couldn't stop his mouth once it got the chance to vent all the confusion and tiredness at the persistent nuisance pestering him at the moment. As he watched the dark eyes set into bright flames he knew the first boundaries were down in the chuunin's polite upbringing, and it wouldn't do not to go all the way down, now would it? "Ah, but then again, how could you possibly know that with your ass being always safe behind the mission desk or the school-"

"For your information, I'm fairly comfortable with the idea of killing you right now, jounin-san," Iruka laid out his words on a heated tone. To think, that for a one, passing minute, he had actually considered-

"A mere tea cup is hardly a threat, chibi-chuu-nin-chan."

"Enough!" Iruka heard himself shout out in his teacher voice and before he knew it, his hand swung through the air at the older man's head with a practiced ease achieved from the many times he had scolded Naruto and his gang. Kakashi dodged the swing with ease and Iruka already cursed in his mind for missing the infuriating man.

Neither of them expected to see a wave of cold water following the path of the passing hand.

Even less for it to impact the silver-haired head with a loud splash.

The dark eyes stared stunned at the equally scandalized lone gray, the only sound on the terrace coming from the small droplets of water hitting the wooden floor.

This was going to be a hellish month.

Chapter Text

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Many had said that he could use a slap or two occasionally.

Tap.

Preferably several with a mean wrist move for extra effect.

Tap.

Even to him, though, this was a new way to cool his head.

Tap.

His bad mood having faded away as rapidly as it had surfaced, Kakashi blinked slowly a couple of times to get out of his stupor while his mind kicked in a gear or two in the silver-haired head and tried to wrap around the sudden turn of events he was currently presented with.

Tap.

He had been slapped to the head with a cold wave of water.

Tap.

Slowly, the ex-ANBU raised his hand to his head and examined silently the damage. His hair clung to his skull and face, the silver strands feeling like being blown to the side by a strong gust of wind and then glued to stay put. Then he pale hand patted through the clothing. The upper part of his dark singlet was thoroughly soaked. His shoulders and upper back were cold and still dripping wet and his mask was unpleasantly damp now that his breathing seemed to warm up the fabric covering both his mouth and nose. That and his ears caught the monotonous sound of water drops tapping against the wet wooden floor under his body, not to mention the even pattern of breathing mixing with the noises brought by the surrounding village life in the background.

Tap.

For his further astonishment, he found his counterpart utterly speechless.

Tap.

Iruka gaped at him with the dark eyes wide and the jaw dropped open, the remnants of their squabble still lingering on the slightly flushed cheekbones. The sensei seemed to have frozen on the spot, and the tan hand was still held in the air, as if the man couldn't decide whether to drop it or give a new go with it.

Tap.

It seemed that neither of them dared to break the silence that had been dropped on them.

Tap.

Once more, the dark gray eye looked over his demeanor and the jounin's mind worked on the given twist, taking notes as he counted the facts. He had again snapped without any warning, which was unexpected and thus mildly unsettling to him. It usually took a great deal to reach his boiling point, but based on the couple of days he could suspect his uncharacteristically explosive temper had something to do with him being without almost all of his chakra, furthermore with his rebellious element that couldn't be picked as the most placid one. The unpredictable nature of lightning might apparently have its downsides as well. On the more current level he felt like being thrown into a cold shower, which was quite interesting in itself, since the temperature of the water hadn't reflected the boiling nature of its sender on any level. But, with all things considered, one fact proved to be far more interesting than others.

Tap.

There had indeed been no jutsu involved.

While gradually getting over his shock, Iruka spotted a new, far more intense glint appear in the lone eye. He could already feel his alertness triple as the eye narrowed its look and the jounin focused his attention to him, the man having undoubtedly processed and examined the whole situation during the timid minutes when they had stared at each other. The chuunin lowered his hand slowly to his lap, but the muscle tension of the said limb didn't relax. He might need it still.

"The training room. Now," the jounin said suddenly and without further warning scrambled up and strode briskly into the dim, ascetic room.

Iruka blinked a couple of times at the empty spot that just previously had a masked man on it, the actions of the older man speaking strongly against their usual choreography for what came to their bickering. What in the world was the man up to now?

"Come on, sensei, we don't have all evening," came the hurried words from the other room.

For a passing second, Iruka opted to take something to throw for extra precautions if the silver-haired pest was planning something objectionable for him. Then again, if the copy-nin had wanted to make him suffer for the water trick he would have done it already. With a concerned frown darkening his face, the tan teacher stood up and cautiously followed the other's footsteps into the spacious room. As the jounin turned around to give him a long look, Iruka cocked a hesitating eyebrow at the unusually excited look in the narrow eye, all of his senses yelling at him to run for it as far as he could, the high fence wall be damned. "Kakashi-san...?"

"Dodge," was the only word he received before the man vanished from sight.

Without a second thought, the chuunin's reflexes kicked in the moment his sight caught the pale fist that was sent towards his chest. He blocked the punch with his crossed arms, but was still forced to take couple of steps back due to the power behind the hit. Before his mind was able to catch up with what was happening, Iruka ducked to the side and turned around in a nick of time to block the second attack of a double punch directed at both at his shoulder and stomach. The third and fourth blows followed seamlessly the previous ones, and to his dismay Iruka noticed Kakashi to pick up speed with every following hit.

"Wait! Kakas-! Could you just-! Watch it, will you!" The teacher shouted while he did everything to keep away from the all the while quickening assaults, ducking down to dodge high kicks and rather feeling than seeing his hands fend off the landing blows. After sending the other stumble past him, the teacher spun around on his heels and took a few running steps away from the strangely acting jounin, only to hear the following footfalls resonate next to his just before his escape was cut off by a swift kick at his abdomen. He managed to seize the kicking leg and with a quick move pulled the older nin out of balance, making him fall to the floor with a thump. With a growl, Iruka dropped himself on the man's stomach with his knee and slammed his hands on the dark-clothed shoulders, lowering his blazing eyes to scowl straight at the floored man. "That's enough now! What has gotten into you?"

"Take a guess, sensei." Kakashi smirked, took a hold of the lean arms holding him while his legs bent under the lean body of his opponent, and kicked the teacher flying over his head in an impressive arc. Iruka gave a pained grunt as he landed on his back on the floor and scrambled hastily on his knees after having shaken the pale hands off his own, both men staggering quickly back up and fixing the other with a calculating look. Kakashi shifted his weight from one leg to other, his whole posture taut like a predator playing with its prey. "I know you're far brighter than the average nin, so it shouldn't be that difficult to understand what I'm aiming for. Unless you're as hard-headed as your students, neh?"

"What are you- whoa!" Iruka didn't get a chance to end his question as the Sharingan user once again plunged himself within the hitting range. Iruka's mind raced with the punches and kicks he blocked one after one, his thoughts trying desperately to keep up with the rest of the situation. Why were they sparring all of a sudden? Why wasn't he given any time to compose himself for it? Why did Kakashi observe his hands so keenly with every block and blow-

"You're trying to repeat what happened," Iruka blurted out suddenly and stopped to an abrupt halt, thus stopping Kakashi as well, the jounin's fists being pressed against the chuunin's forearms.

The older shinobi nodded briefly. "Well thought, sensei." Then the man took a step back and gave two strong hits with his own forearms, forcing Iruka to steps backwards as the teacher tried to keep his head from being hit. "Tsunade-sama said that our elements are breaking loose, right? I'm keen to see to what extent it has already progressed."

Oh, I could give you a briefing on that, bastard...Iruka felt the heat rise to his face at the passing thought while the rather vivid images concerning the earlier clash of their elements popped into his head. There was no way for him to reveal voluntarily what had happened while the jounin had been unconscious. The hits from both fists and feet continued to land on his forearms, and Iruka was certain that he would have a rather impressive set of dark marks on them the next day as he kept on defending himself against the powerful blows. Then the tan cheeks took a turn towards a more grayish color scale as a far more unpleasant idea knocked down the immaterial doors in his mind, almost making him trip on his own feet.

What if the same thing happened now?

"...What makes you so sure that it will happen?" Iruka tried to keep his voice steady without the nervous pitch that was determined to creep into it, hoping that the man took his winces as a sign of hurting arms rather than having disturbing thoughts currently infiltrating his head and doing unspeakable things to the mental barriers on their happy way. He couldn't let the man smell the fear that was slowly furnishing a cozy nest in his gut and inviting its friends over for a tea. He couldn't even finish the question in his head as to how the older nin would have reacted earlier if he just suddenly had woken up to a...

Furthermore, it would be impossible to spar in that state!

"Well, you see, that's the point. I'm not," Kakashi said and offered a pair of brightly smiling eyes before he delivered a roundhouse kick at the younger man. "It could also be connected to something very different than sparring. That's why I'm interested to see if the elements will react to what we're doing at the moment." Through his smiling eyes, he was already searching for an opening in the man's defense. Time to reel back on track. "But for now, I'd like us to continue where we left off-," in a flash the dark brown eyes stared at the smiling pair of mismatched eyes just a few inches away, "-and see how far I can push to get that reaction out of you."

Iruka snarled loudly and dodged down, aiming his fist at Kakashi's side. Without hesitation, Kakashi took the swinging fist into his own and twisted it sharply, gaining a hiss of pain from the dark-haired man. Iruka yanked his hand back to safety and took a few hurried steps away from the jounin, his dark eyes setting into a narrow glare as they followed each twitch of muscles on the pale man's body while his brain worked vigorously over his newest problem. He had close to nil possibilities to talk himself out of the situation, and if he started to protest too eagerly, the bastard was sure to notice something being amiss, and knowing what kind of pain the man then would become was the last nail on his proverbial coffin. No matter how he mulled the issue over, it all came down to one solution.

He had no other choice than to fight his way out of it.

The teacher looked over his opponent who seemed to wait for his next move, the gray eye steel-hard and focused. The jounin had been out cold when the mishap had happened, and the man didn't seem to remember all of their discussions with Tsunade, since there hadn't been any lewd comments yet concerning his problems with controlling his lower anatomy (hell, even he had forgotten it before the incident happened). He just had to keep his head cool and senses alert, furthermore avoid the man's touch the instant when he would start to feel...strained. After making the decision and setting his mind on the customary mission mode, Iruka bent slightly from his knees before lunging himself at the other man, the chuunin's determined gaze drilling into his opponent's still form. The moment he reached the ideal distance, Iruka pulled his fists back and with a quick spin lashed his right out to land the initial hit before joining it with the left. With trained gracefulness, Kakashi stepped out of reach for the flying fists and rounded the man before sending him stumble on the matted floor by a mighty blow into the broad back. Before he could grab the man for further beating, though, Iruka danced away from his hands and dashed to Kakashi's left with silent steps, the man apparently aiming once again for the blind spot.

A tiny smirk crept on Kakashi's hidden lips. Getting a desired reaction or not, he was certainly getting kicks out of this match. His eye made contact with the burning brown ones, and not for the first time the smile grew wider underneath the mask while he blocked a combo of two high kicks followed by four remarkably accurate blows. Even though the whole man was a joy to watch, the chuunin's eyes were a sight worth staring on their own. Never before had he met someone so complex and passionate with their emotions, not until he got introduced with the pedagogically ambitious firecracker. He was naturally taken aback by how quickly the chuunin's moods shifted during their interaction, but he was specifically intrigued on how the man could both reveal and conceal his true thoughts so smoothly. On some level, it felt similar to talking with an ANBU. They had had their training on reigning in their emotions and keeping them out of their work, but also how to use them for their advantage when needed. On many occasions, the teacher's open display of emotions could be seen like a hidden blade, if one knew where to look for the well-honed edge. The next crossing thought made Kakashi falter in his steps for the shortest second.

"- - that doesn't mean that I'm not scared of you on some degree, Kakashi-san. Maybe that's actually the key factor as to why I want to fight with you. Have you ever considered that option?"

"You're leaving yourself open, Kakashi-san," said the mellow voice before Kakashi felt a mean kick land against his side that sent him flying a couple of meters before hitting the ground. In seconds he rolled away from the cruel heel that whammed against the matted floor. He pushed himself up with a huff and hopped a few long steps backwards to dodge a set of blows directed at his torso. His mind was turned into full gear now and his keen eye followed every step the younger man made towards him, the deft pale hands and legs blocking the delivered hits mostly on trained reflex rather than with guided thought. He felt his gut stir for some reason at the man's words and his sharp look turned into a piercing glare. How much of that blade stayed in the sheath when the teacher was with him? The jounin nearly stepped into a fist as yet another peculiar thought unceremoniously dumped his mind into a deep and dark gutter.

How open did the man leave himself?

"Kakashi-san!" An annoyed, unnecessarily loud bark made him halt completely as his mind was snatched back to pay full attention at his likely doom. For some reason the dark scowl that was thrown at him by the narrowed pair of brown eyes made him feel like a genin failing on his first lesson on taijutsu. He dared to give a better look at the unimpressed academy teacher who clearly took his time to observe him with unmistakable signs of disdain present on the puffing man's face. Then the chuunin took a deeper breath, more likely to calm his ticking nerves than balancing his breathing in the copy-nin's opinion, before putting the already bruising hands on the firm hips and having a slightly twitching eyebrow raised for a question. "What, exactly, do you call that stance?"

When the ex-ANBU took in his rather unprofessional appearance with both hands held palms open and only halfway up for defense and his legs in ridiculously wide stand on straight knees, he did feel a bit silly.

Recognizing the familiar tone he had been introduced with during the many visits in the mission room whenever he had decided to brighten the dark-haired tyrant's day with his skills in novelty literature, Kakashi cleared his throat, still holding his awkward stance unchanged, and gambled a sheepish grin at his fuming adversary. "...Ah...this here is the result of the ANBU training, so unfortunately I can't tell you, sensei." The dryly cocked dark eyebrow rose yet another millimeter at his apparently ludicrous choice of words, and the jounin watched in cautious curiosity as the man's lips formed a silent 'oh'. Alas, he knew that to be just the prelude.

"With all due respect for the ANBU and your personal efforts for keeping our psyche-nins sufficiently employed, that is by far the worst defending stance I have ever witnessed during my days as an academy instructor. What in hell's name possessed you to even consider that as a suitable move? Even my students could beat you up as you are now, for crying out loud!"

Ignoring his miserably wailing ego mauled by one peeved Umino, Kakashi straightened his posture and scratched his masked cheek with a happy smile in his eyes. He had forgotten how perceptive the other man really was, and it didn't take long for him to understand that he was in for more than just a heated lecture on defense tactics if he didn't choose his next words more carefully. Among their profession it was commonly considered rude to think of other things when matching with someone, for there was no clearer message to let the other know how weak they were considered. Therefore doing it to a man who was particularly sensitive around that matter could be considered as smart as giving the finger to Enma [1] himself (or yelling the completely wrong name in the heat of the moment, which in most cases could quickly lead to greeting the aforementioned deity sitting behing the ethereal office desk [2]). Then again, the copy-nin had always preferred to live dangerously. "..Maa, just got lost on the road of life, sensei."

"And which one of those undoubtedly fascinating roads was it this time?" Iruka felt his vein tick at the man's smiling eyes. Kakashi had been distracted once before during their matches, but this time it was blatantly obvious that the bastard's mind was nowhere near the present situation. The chuunin didn't disregard good openings during a fight, but attacking someone lost it their thoughts, especially if the targeted person was one's mission partner, made his morals scream in alert. He never got kicks out of a dirty fight, unlike some other shinobis he unfortunately knew to enjoy even more if they got to use their corrupted methods on their opponents. Plus, he didn't like the implications of him being hardly a threat to the arrogant pest if the other had time to indulge himself with other issues. Someday he would forget to act by his reputation as the straight-laced sensei.

"Ah, but this one was a brand new with a delightful coastal view, you see, and they told me to get as much humid ocean air as possible to keep my sense of smell in good condition. Who am I to pass an opportunity to keep myself in shape for missions?" Kakashi said with a tiny smirk adorning his masked features, the gray eye bright and mischievous. Slowly, he set his muscles ready underneath his dark clothes.

Iruka felt a persistent tug on his lips and he gave a soft snort at the masked man. A pervert and a pathological liar aside, the older nin knew the ways to make his anger subside. "I see. What a diligent jounin you are." Carefully, his shoulders set themselves low and ready, his hands slowly flexed each of his fingers and he felt both his calves and thighs twitch in excitement. He could see the other's deceivingly laid-back pose morph gradually into something more dangerous, and with each passing second the amount of adrenaline increased in his system. The tiny tug slipped into an outright devilish grin on the scarred face. "Should I start to doubt that you're not as lazy, arrogant, sadistic and perverted as the rumors make you appear?"

When a playful spark took over the gray eye, the observant chuunin had already forgotten why he had opposed their match in the first place. After the last days with more or less negative news, it seemed that both of them needed something familiar in order to ground them back to their actual mission. And if there happened to be a possibility for him to give the jounin a few good hits on the way, he wasn't against the offer.

"I have always admired your optimism, Iruka-sensei," Kakashi said with a happy tilt of the head. A gesture which smoothly turned into a dip of the silver-haired head as the jounin plummeted himself towards the chuunin, his silent feet rushing him to the man's front and then plunging him in the air for a ruthless upper-cut kick.

Having expected the assault, Iruka dashed away from the cutting kick and then delivered his own at the jounin the moment the pale leg made contact with the floor, sending the pale jounin down with a loud wham as his heel connected with the man's upper chest. Continuing his momentum, Iruka swept down to drive his fists into the man's gut, only to hit the floor as the jounin retreated away from the range. In a blink he felt two blows against his back crush him face first to the floor, after which a strong grip grabbed his ponytail and lifted him back up on his knees. The moment the hand disappeared from his hair Iruka felt a rough punch make itself known to his diaphragm, the air leaving him with a violent wheeze. Not waiting for the finishing kick, the chuunin dropped down on his side and rolled on his back, seeing the kicking leg swing past above his figure. Then he supported his upper body on the already trembling arms and swung his strong legs sideways in a resemblance to a windmill, the lean shins and thighs grazing the matted surface with deadly speed. To his disappointment, the jounin hopped over the widely kicking legs before aiming a knee at chuunin's abs, a move familiar to Iruka as he had made the same thing just a few moments earlier. The dark-haired man lifted both his legs and arms over his torso and managed to fend off the cruel knee, then the teacher scrambled back on all fours and continued his retreat to avoid the following fists hitting the matted floor right where his body was seconds ago. Cursing vehemently under his breath, the chuunin pushed himself up on his knees and slapped the fists away before delivering a rough, unrefined punch with knuckles at the masked jaw, sending the older nin reeling to the side.

The second his whole body touched the floor, Kakashi changed the direction of his momentum and hopped back up with ease. Not giving his opponent time to see his next moves, the jounin all but launched himself at the chuunin. Iruka saw the approach and kept his eyes trained on the oncoming assault while his body regrouped itself, his squat low and solid with the strong hands and legs pressed firmly against the floor. Kakashi noticed the man's change of posture and made a quick move to the side, all the while feeling the keen eyes on him as he gradually circled closer to the sharp-minded sensei. Iruka followed the pale man both with his eyes and all of his other senses, his mind scanning through the strategic archives at the same speed with the encircling jounin and discarding the possible attacks one after one when they didn't fit the information he gathered from the advancing shinobi. Suddenly a fist passing next to his head sent a gust of wind brushing against his skin, and Iruka flattened himself on the floor as the anticipated kick sailed above his head. Then he once again pushed himself sideways with his arms and legs to avoid the cutting punch aimed at his back, but he hadn't expected to feel a firm grip suddenly take hold of his shoulder and pull him on his back with a thunk, his fate sealed when the grip changed into tendon-crushing weight pushing against his captured shoulder, thus effectively forcing him to stay put.

A victorious chuckle was all the warning Kakashi gave to the younger man before his firm fist drove in to the man's abdomen, the tatami mat giving a crack in its fibers as the set of merciless fingers and knuckles made full impact to the tan body with the jounin's full weight enhancing the blow.

Iruka heaved painfully for air after the contact was made and his back felt like having caught fire due to the harsh collision with the woven mat. That was a mean trick, and his glare was certain to deliver his thoughts at the bastard hovering above him. Then suddenly, the same deadly fist slammed next to his head and he could feel the tiny shock of air caress the strands of hair on his temple, hushing every witty retort he had gathered on his tongue.

"...That could have crushed your frontal lobe," a low, dangerous voice said above his face. Iruka fixed his eyes to answer the given look from the gray eye, the jounin's expression unusually blank and unreadable. After a moment of silence, the older man spoke out the awaited explanation. "...As tempting as it was, we're here to spar rather than kill each other. At least that's what was written in my scroll. Can't be sure about yours, though. But the next time, as much as you seem to enjoy it, don't spend so much time on the floor, neh? You're offering yourself as an easy target that way," the copy-nin said lightly and the mismatched eyes smiled brightly above the dark mask, replacing the sudden seriousness from the man's appearance. "That aside, have you felt anything yet?"

Iruka looked silently at the man above him for a heartbeat and then gave a pensive look at the ceiling behind the silver-haired jounin. "...Well, for one, I'm fairly sure that there are smoother ways to seduce a person..." His face split into a devious smirk at the older man's shocked expression. Served the genius right for asking idiotic questions. "Honestly, what did you think I'd answer, numbskull?"

Kakashi gave a tired sigh, but couldn't hide his amusement at the man's words. Truth to be told, he should have expected something akin to the smart-assing he got when he asked the question. He lifted himself away from the teacher and leaned on his arms while the other seemed to be comfortable on the floor. The lone eye watched the darkened yard outside the training room, the evening having turned into night during their match. It was actually a bit dark in the training room as well, now that he gave the space a second look. That explained why for a moment he had worried if his eyesight was getting bad.

"Though the answer to your question is still negative, Kakashi-san," Iruka said and observed the ceiling above him, noticing for the first time how dark it actually was in the room. No wonder he had had difficulties to keep up with the man from time to time. "I felt nothing significant whatsoever." Luckily, in his opinion. He gave a tired yawn and stretched his back, regretting it the second the still hurting skin area moved against the floor. He was going to have a fun night with the new injuries done to his body, not to mention the delightful joys of pain that awaited him in the morning.

Kakashi huffed in thought and ignored the faint flow of curses being muttered from the teacher's direction when his mind turned to ponder on the current information they had managed to gather so far. If their elements didn't rebel during their fights, then what was it that ignited the reaction? What had he missed?

"...It could be emotional," Iruka's voice carried through the thoughtful silence. The jounin cast a questioning look at the chuunin, the other man keeping his dark eyes on the dark ceiling. Both men weighed the said words in brief silence. Then the teacher gave a quick glance at the elite who was still observing him. "I was mightily pissed when I slapped you, so it could be tied to emotional stress on some level."

On those words, Kakashi sat up more properly and propped his clothed jaw on his hands, and through the darkness Iruka saw the gray eye grow distant. The man was clearly losing himself into his thoughts again. Suddenly the copy-nin hummed in a low voice, and the chuunin was quite sure that he detected a sliver of amusement in the tune. "So you're suggesting that I should get you riled up in order to get a reaction? Haven't we solved that equation even before this mission, or am I missing something vital here?"

Iruka gave a short laugh at the man's lightly teasing words, the jounin had hit a good point with that. "We have, but you wouldn't want a cold shower from now on whenever you press my buttons, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi shrugged lazily at that. "You have a point there, I suppose. But then again, it could have its perks whenever my uniform gets dirty on the missions. They say the blood has to be washed off when it's still fresh to avoid visible stains, not to mention the other body fluids," Kakashi gave the man a leer with mischievously smiling eyes. Shame that the room was so dark, since he was fairly sure that the chuunin's cheeks sported a nice blush at that moment if the appalled sputtering was anything to go by.

"I'll have you disinfected and wrapped tightly in cling film the next time you approach my desk, pervert." He should have known where their discussions would lead sooner or later. With a tired sigh, Iruka picked himself up, cursing briefly the hurting back on his way, and felt an eye on him as he went to the terrace to pick up the tray with the leftovers of their late supper. Carrying the dirty dishes towards the kitchen, he cast a small smile at the silent jounin. "It's rather late. We can concentrate on this riddle better tomorrow when I have more in my head than just the nagging wish to get some sleep. I suspect that your body feels the same, Kakashi-san, even though you have slept most of the day." The chuunin walked to the kitchen and as the hot water filled up the sink he had put the dishes in, he heard the other's footfalls land on the terrace. From the corner of his eye, Iruka spotted Kakashi stand on the edge of the wooden porch, facing the dark night in his usual slouch, the man seemingly alone with his thoughts.

As the teacher finished washing the last plate, he sensed more than heard the other enter the kitchen on silent feet.

"What is it that you're afraid of in me, Iruka-sensei?"

The quietly spoken question made the plate slip from Iruka's hands and fall back to the sink with an echoing clang, spilling a good amount of warm water on his clothes in the process. A muttered curse left the teacher's lips and he took the plate again, rinsed it swiftly and put it into cupboard with the others. With no hurry, he wiped his hands dry as they both silently observed the used water flow down the drain. Then Iruka shifted his already aching muscles to lean his weight lightly against the counter and lifted the slightly tired eyes to challenge the intensively staring gray one. A slender eyebrow rose to counter the seriously spoken question and the chuunin's voice carried a deceivingly light tone in it. "I thought we had already discussed that matter. When was the last time you had your hearing checked?"

Unfortunately, the teacher had forgotten who he played against.

With a deliberately slow step forward, Kakashi tilted his head closer to the tan man. "It will take more than that to make me lose the scent the second time, sensei." Intrigued, the jounin observed as one of the chuunin's fingers halted in the air, just half an inch above the hard counter it had been absently tapping against. A subtle warning meant for him.

"...Saa, you're demanding a straight answer from a shinobi? Is this something you picked up along the way when adventuring on the road of life? Let me guess, this time it had an oasis in it, eh?" The mellow voice spoke in a tantalizing tone, and Kakashi could see the challenge shine bright in the teacher's eyes. In the days to come, he just might forget his vow not to use the Sharingan on his comrades. They all made slips, even him.

"You're avoiding the subject," pointed the quiet remark from the jounin's side.

As easily as it had appeared, the spark in Iruka's eyes faded away and the chuunin settled for a more unreadable look. The decrease of temperature in the usually warm and rich baritone was an interesting note in the copy-nin's books. "As convenient as it could be, I'm not. I have given you all of the information you need. It's not my problem if you can't use that porn-corrupted head to get the answers that you're lacking or the right questions you could be asking instead of focusing on trivial little details. You're a jounin and an ex-ANBU, Kakashi-san, and I expect you to act as your rank dictates. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less." With that the teacher pushed himself off the counter and set his way towards the shared bedroom. He felt really tired and debating over insignificant matters with the one-eyed air-head wasn't a valid reason for him to skip a good night's sleep. He sensed the other follow him with his eye and his professional senses alerted him to prepare for the last comment for the night. Sadly, he wasn't disappointed.

"You're admitting that there's more to it." Kakashi observed the man stop by the bedroom door, the other's hand ready to pull the door open. Instead of getting a mere glare or a general mutter on 'stupid jounin', the lightning user was granted with an unfazed look over the broad shoulder.

"You'd be worse than an idiot not to spot that." The passing, teasing smirk didn't miss its mark, and Kakashi could feel his own brows twitch at the smug look in the other's eyes. Thus, he couldn't help but give his own contribution to their tongue-lashing.

"Maa. For a man who demands mature behavior from his peers, you're quite a flippant little fucker yourself, sensei."

Of all the violent outcomes he was prepared to defend himself against, the loud laughter that escaped the chuunin's lips wasn't on any of his lists. The tan fingers wiped over the tired eyes before the younger nin served the surprised upper rank with a toothy grin. "Remind me to give you a kunai sticker for that when the mission ends, ge-ni-us."And with a last, wicked look cast at the nonplussed jounin, the smirking chuunin disappeared to the bedroom, the proud, spiky ponytail swaying as the man shook his head on the way.

As the soft click of the closing door registered in his stunned mind, Kakashi found himself left alone in the faint glow of the kitchen light, only the silence as his company. That had been an unexpected conversation, but, if he was honest with himself, he had anticipated it to leave him with a whole bunch of new questions concerning the ambivalent sensei rather than getting what he had wanted from the infuriating man. As he slowly replayed their evening down to the last words before Iruka had left to sleep, some other connections made themselves suddenly active in his head, which led to unravel a few almost forgotten memories concerning their latest adventures in the world of chakra. The moment when one particular snippet of dialogue clicked into place, all the other thoughts were promptly thrown out of his mind's surreal window into the absurd maze that was the ex-ANBU's logic.

"...It was only Iruka-sensei who got the reaction."

Even the pin itself wanted to keep the intense silence uninterrupted. Then, a quiet, rumbling chuckle that was tinted with an evil undertone rose slowly from the masked throat while the man of thousand jutsus casually clicked the feeble light out and shambled in the darkness to enjoy a warm shower before joining the current target of his musings for a sleep, the new, insidious plans being formed in the genius mind.

A well-hidden blade, indeed.

Chapter Text

The gentle rain thrummed against the roof tiles as the gray, humid and calm morning tapped its greetings gently on every roof and window in the hidden village. The warmth that had enveloped the region for the few passing days had grudgingly subsided after the chilly rain had persuaded it to give some room for the other weathers as well, since they were all needed to make the oncoming summer as pleasing as possible to the subjects of their care. Especially when Konoha was considered, the rain did its best to maintain the trees and plants with the greenness they were so well appreciated and loved for. No leaf wilted on its watch.

While the inhabitants of the village took the rainy day the best they could, their thoughts varying from the relief of not having guard duty that day to disappointment when the field day in the academy would be canceled due to the bad weather conditions, there stood a lonely man on a terrace made of well-worn wooden blanks.

For Kakashi, the rain was more than welcomed. The jounin leaned against the wall, his first morning coffee in hand, and had his eyes closed as he listened carefully the serenade of various taps, drips and dribbles echoing from the modest architecture of their current location, the rhythmic melodies mixing delightedly with the white noise of the surrounding, awakening neighborhood.

A small, crooked smile splayed on the rarely revealed pale lips, the man knowing that there was no one within hundred miles who could catch a glimpse of the currently unmasked face, the still sleeping chuunin included. The jounin took a slow sip of his coffee, savoring the rich, dark taste on his tongue, albeit feeling a bit disappointed for it lacking the same full aftertaste when compared to the ones which the slumbering sensei had brewed for him a couple of times. Either the man really knew how to brew a cup or the taste was affected by the joy of somebody else doing something for him.

The gray eye peered a bit open to cast a thoughtful, if a bit melancholic look at the gradually strengthening rain now pounding more vigorously through the streets of his village. The silver mane pressed against the cool wall and the man took another sip, letting the warm liquid linger against his upper lip just for a minute before lowering the cup from his mouth and swallowing the bitter beverage, feeling it warm up his insides and thus creating an enjoyable contrast to the chill air surrounding him.

...It had been a while, hadn't it.

Then the gray eye shifted its attention to the dimly lit kitchen. He had been surprised when he had checked the fridge that morning and suspected that the young sensei had something to do with the particular ingredients he had found. He could only picture the ANBU's expression when the teacher had made his request, and the passing thought reminded him to have his own chat with the masked thorn on his side the next time the kohai granted them with his presence.

He also needed to ask for a new pillow. Using his uniform vest for that purpose was routine for him during the long missions whenever he had time to doze off for longer than fifteen minutes, but he'd be damned not to take advantage of the better sleeping conditions when given the opportunity for it. He also wasn't getting any younger during the years, and he had remembered why he had preferred to not sleep horizontally at all during field missions when he had woken up. The pale man lifted his other hand to rub firmly the still aching shoulder, and he could feel his neck being out for revenge.

Inflicting damage on one's body almost on daily basis for many years in a row wasn't the smartest thing to do in the long run now that the physical age was catching up with the muscles and bones. Being overly flexible and quicker than a blink could only last for the earliest years in their profession before the scars, fractures, sprains and missing limbs started to take their toll on them. The issues of mental traumas were a whole other thing, of course, and if he had known that, Kakashi would have taken a mission or two a bit differently back when he was younger and at the beginning of his career.

If he ever had been given a choice, that is.

Drinking down the last drops of the beloved caffeine, the lone shinobi gave the last look over the wet ground of the small yard at the dark clouds roaming over the awakening village like the hands of an experienced medic, the rain removing all of the poisons from the air they breathed. As the man of thousand jutsus took in a deep gulp of the humid, clear air, he could feel his senses recover from their drowsiness and his mind wake up, the awakening body being accompanied with an almost silly smile spreading on the well-shaped features of the ex-ANBU as the man indulged himself in the rare luxury of silence, peace and the feeling of being relatively safe, the latter being something he had been quite sure to have forgotten a long time ago. At the slightly sorrowful ring in his thoughts, the man gave a tiny chuckle at himself as his smile only grew and took a turn into a more rueful one, revealing the row of teeth only a few had ever seen.

If they ever knew that he'd be able to feel sentimental.

The falling rain observed curiously when the slightly smiling jounin hummed a meaningless little tune as he leisurely strolled back in to get his second fill of the dark nectar for the day.

The current weather decided to loiter around a bit longer.

...Rain. The heavy kind.

A sleepy smile found its way on the handsome features of the twenty-something shinobi when Iruka woke up to a rhythmic tapping echoing around him in the darkness. He always felt tired when it rained, and as the things stood in his opinion, he had every right to feel such at the moment after the past couple of days. He could always argue that he needed to be well-rested for their matches. His drowsy mind happily settled, the strong jaw stretched into a quiet yawn and the dark eyes dropped back closed as the chuunin rolled lazily to his side, tempted to continue where he had been left off with a bowl of matcha ice cream and a spicy cup of sinfully well brewed chai...

...Except.

After a moment of thoughtful silence, the dark eyes peered back open and the teacher's senses awakened a bit more to work on the strange, persistently nagging feeling that was making itself known in the back of his head. The fit, dark-skinned body lifted itself halfway up on the bed in order to slowly turn around to give a better look at what had made Iruka's instincts grow restless and forced him to delay the imaginative oral orgasm that had been on his list.

As the man scanned the room, soon enough the sleepy, deep brown eyes fell on the second futon in the room, it being bare as the deserts surrounding Sunagakure and visibly lacking one lazy-ass jounin. Against all odds, the bastard seemed to have awoken before him.

The question of why flew past unnoticed as the abused muscles caught on him being awake and thus gave their own rather painful opinion on that. Iruka groaned between gritted teeth and slowly lowered himself back on the mattress, regretting it instantly when his back burst into burning ache all over his spinal area the moment it touched the firm surface. Undoubtedly the last night's match was a bit too rough for the still tender new tissue covering the scarred area, and now Iruka had to pay for that fact. He stretched the broad shoulders carefully against the linen, the breath hitching as a particularly nasty jab shot through his upper body and making him to try another tactic, the perceptive eyes squinting shut against the agony raking through his system. He bent himself a bit to the side, but was quickly forced to return back to the previous position when the nerves and muscles screamed in agonizing chorus against his ministrations. There was no better way to feel old and crippled than having one's body flamed with infernal pain the second after opening the eyes. A harshly hissed curse fell from the snarling lips and the chuunin directed a dark scowl towards the ceiling above him.

He was sure, though, that no ceiling should ever smirk back as gleefully as it now did behind the dark mask.

"Yo."

The citizens of Konoha ran for cover as the previously light drizzle suddenly turned into a monsoon washing over the ones unlucky enough to get caught in it as the pounding rain covered its ears from the scream that rang through the rooms in the innocent-looking, light gray house.

"..Maa, sensei. Have some tea, neh?"

Only murderous silence answered him.

"..Ah. I hope you're fine with the pu'erh [1] I found, and I did follow the steeping instructions so it should be good. Though I must say that I'm intrigued, sensei. Who knew how many different teas there could actually be, neh?"

If anything, the glare in the dark eyes seemed to only deepen at his poor attempt for casual conversation, and to his dismay the jounin spotted the nearly invisible twitch tweak the frowning eyebrow on the darkly scowling face. Kakashi gave a tiny sigh and winced at the tiny sting of pain on his masked cheeks and chin that were still slightly swollen due to the chuunin's impressively pulled impromptu windmill kick that had given him a brand new, tangible perspective for the blankets they had. He had been playing with fire, granted, since it was a fool's job to sneak up on a sleepy, trained killer, but the silent treatment he now received was actually far more intimidating than having his head wrapped inside the thick fabric of the felt and banged to the floor by the strong legs belonging to a very homicidal academy instructor.

What made the lightning user's mood turn more sour, even if he didn't like admitting it, was the fact that the seething chuunin was in no doubt more than capable of continuing the heavy silence if he chose to. After all, it wouldn't be much of a surprise if the man's students took after him on some levels. If Kakashi could hazard a guess, he was sure the current pout that was nearing sheer perfection on the full lips was a result from years of careful training. But, as the situation was given, he had to get the man placated enough to enjoy the breakfast before he would get brutalized with a pair of chopsticks, or, since he knew the man's remarkable talents on turning almost anything into a weapon, more likely with the assortment of fruit which the teacher eyed a bit too keenly.

"You went through my teas for the second time, Kakashi-san?" The dark eyes stayed downcast at the chopped fruits and the questioning voice was calm and quiet, but it would take a dead fool not to notice the high-pitched ring of hard metal lingering in the man's peacefully spoken words, a sound which resembled suspiciously a katana being drawn out of its sheath.

Damn it. Kakashi bit his too honest tongue on that particular slip. He still remembered what happened to Ebisu when the man had taken one of Iruka's traveling tea bags without consulting the chuunin about it first. As he had arrived to the teacher's lounge for his break, the mentioned tea addicted sensei had spotted that the last pouch of his favorite genmaicha [2] had not only vanished from its rightful place, but had been brutally ripped open and put in the uptight besserwisser's cup and to his utter terror witnessed it being used for only one quick, poor brew with scalding hot water before ending into the trash bin. Even the Hokage herself had been impressed with the combination of field battle barriers and seals the teacher had unleashed at the special jounin, moreover on the fact that Iruka had paid enough consideration on the surroundings that neither the school's facilities or the other occupants in the room had been damaged during the fiery retribution.

Not one to go down without at least an entertaining fight, the silver-haired jounin gave the younger man a bright smile with his eyes. "Yes. I did. I wouldn't have been able to serve you full breakfast if I didn't, sensei. I hope you don't mind."

The chuunin took a silent, long inhale through his nose and let it out slowly before lifting the intently glaring eyes to look at the still smiling mismatched pair, and for a moment Kakashi was almost sure he could feel the highly educated man's aura finger the immaterial blade.

For his mild surprise, his genius head stayed intact.

A sigh was heard and the ghost katana was put back into its sheath with a soft click. "No, Kakashi-san, I don't mind."

On that note the gray eye met the pair of dark eyes glancing back under the frown. Then the chuunin sighed again, the strong muscles on his body relaxing with the released breath, and took the awaiting tea pot with the cup. "But for your sake I do hope that you at least used the older pu'erh, since it's more suited for a bad weather like we have now", the man continued with a more conversational tone as he filled the cup with the warm, deep mahogany brown liquid. For a moment, the teacher observed the poured drink before lifting it to his nose for a light sniff. "...And it seems you did. Impressive. Not many notice the difference." A passing tug of the full lips was something Kakashi didn't expect either, and the smile that took over the eyes that cast a short look at him over the rim of the steaming cup was enough to make his fingers itch for making the signs for the genjutsu release. But, instead of muttering 'kai' under his breath, the copy-nin decided to go for the tentative truce he was being offered.

"Did anyone visit here while I was passed out?"

"I suspect you already saw the fridge's content." Iruka cast a nonchalant look at the older man as he sipped the tea.

Kakashi answered the look with a lazy shrug and took a piece of fruit in his fingers, giving the chopped, pale chunk that used to be a pear a mockingly pensive look. "Just confirming the intel. You know how paranoid we jounins can be."

A soft snort was heard at that. "Indeed you are, and indeed I know." Then the chuunin sensei shook his head in teasing manner, the tone of his voice giving a lighter layer to his next words. "Shame though that you found them out. Now you would only focus on the aspect of getting fed within the next couple of hours rather than concentrate on our mission." The rumbling chuckle from the older man's direction made Iruka's mouth spread into a wide grin before he took another sip of his tea and snatched a couple of fruits himself, feeling the warmth spread within his body and mind. He wouldn't mind sleeping longer once in a while if he was offered with an equally well-brewed cup he was now enjoying.

"Why were you up so early, though?" Iruka heard his mouth say half-aloud in between the munches before his mind got to the point of even considering asking the jounin about it. For all he knew the man could have just taken a shower, or meditated, or most likely had read his dirty books, whatever the restless jounin did when he woke up too early. It wasn't his concern to pry on the other man, mission partner or not. Expecting a brief, professional answer between the lines of 'none of your concern', Iruka was surprised to see Kakashi take a more comfortable seat on the floor and direct a nonchalant look at the rain outside the double doors of the training room.

"Well I did sleep almost the whole day yesterday. There's a limit on how much a man's body can take sleep and laying under the covers."

A choking sound made Kakashi turn to look at the suddenly coughing teacher as the chuunin fought to not drown on his tea. Even without words, the younger man had found the right way to make his argument loud and clear. Discarding the tempting thought of helping the man to get his lungs filled with warm, aromatic water, Kakashi calmly scooted closer, raised his hand, aimed, and gave a sharp smack at the man's upper back. The heaving stopped immediately, which, Kakashi quickly realized, left the smart-ass teacher with enough air for forming words. He should have stopped his hand to give it a second thought.

Iruka held his other hand over his mouth and gasped for breath for a moment before giving a brightly shining look at the copy-nin's direction, the tan cheeks flushed due to the brief lack of oxygen. "I think we need to establish a whole new limit scale to make you fit into it, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi gave the teacher a nod with a thoughtful hum. "Maa, absolutely, with a slot designed solely for chuunins with too smart asses."

"Oh spare me from that, you'd do exactly the same if you were me...hell, possibly even worse when you are you," Iruka said with a faint cough and rolled his eyes in the process.

Kakashi gave the tan man an unreadable look. "Drown myself with my drink, irritate my colleague or draw diagrams about it? I hope the worse version doesn't include Gai."A chuckle found its way at his amused speculations. Then the pale man took a better seat on the woven mat and gave another look outside at the rainy scenery. "Speaking of scales and such...This must be the first mission where I would suffer from chakra depletion when I'm left without almost any chakra to begin with. Must be my record."

Iruka seemed to sober up on the quietly spoken note. The chuunin lowered his eyes at the deep auburn tea, and from the corner of his eye, Kakashi couldn't be sure if that was regret he saw on the other's face. The strange look passed, and the scar-nosed man turned to look properly at the jounin. "Should we begin our day, Kakashi-san? We have a schedule to catch."

"I thought shinobis are flexible."

"I think you're not any better to bark at the moment, since I'm fairly sure that was wince I just saw."

"Maa, something in your eye, I'm sure," Kakashi shrugged on the opposite side from Iruka, them sitting on the floor with their feet pressed against each other with their legs being spread to the sides, thus creating a space resembling a distorted square between them. Both men leaned back on their hands with their posture still held straight, the stretch aimed solely on their inner thighs' muscles and the hip joints. Although, at the moment the deep brown eyes were aimed straight at the smiling mismatched pair seen over one dark mask, and the sulking face of the younger nin was making the other's smirk grow even wider underneath the smooth fabric.

"Ready to move closer, sensei?" The teasing wink didn't get lost from the other man who gave a hiss of pain as a reply when they pushed their legs even wider by sliding their hips a bit closer to one another on the floor. As soon as they settled for the stretch once again, Iruka suddenly let out a yelp and lifted his bottom from the ground by leaning more on his straight arms, that way easing the body weight on his hips. The chuunin stifled a pained moan and answered the inquiring look in the narrowed gray eye with a weak smile.

"I'm fine, just give a minute, Kakashi-san."

A pale hand appeared on his shoulder and squeezed firmly the tense tendons and muscles, making the younger shinobi's focus draw itself from the agonizing ache to the slightly smiling eyes of his superior. Kakashi gave the man a tiny nod and slowly helped the man settle back on the floor before leaning back on his both hands. "Concentrate on your breathing, sensei. That way you won't tense your crotch."

An annoyed look was sent at his direction as Iruka followed the given advice. "My crotch isn't 'tense', thank you."

"Well, we can easily remedy that if you like." The copy-nin was quite proud of the immaculately executed lewd tone he managed to include in his words. All he needed was the following shouting and their morning exercise would be completed.

The suddenly intense look passing Iruka's otherwise well-schooled features was an intriguing response that the jounin hadn't anticipated. Then the chuunin gave a dry tilt of his lips, the previous display of emotions having vanished from sight in the dark eyes. "Tempting, but I'll pass. I enjoy my crotch as it is at the moment, jounin-san."

"If you stretched a bit more often then I'm sure there would be plenty of others who'd like to enjoy it too, sensei."

Kakashi's jaw would learn to hate him.

One, two, three - four! Kakashi barely slipped away from the surprising right hook flung at him, his legs carrying him away from the skilled pursuer whose other hand had almost reached the tiny, chiming goal as the unexpected hit had distracted the jounin. The clear ring of the silver bells echoed in the training room amidst the sounds of labored breathing and silently running feet when the two nins took their measure.

Iruka clicked his tongue at the other's narrow escape but continued the chase, the steeled determination enhancing the endurance of his already exhausted muscles. For five times already he had been close.

The next one would be the clear kill.

Iruka hummed quietly as he shut the small box with the filled vials in it and put it back into the fridge. Then the chuunin grabbed a mug and a cup in tow and went to the terrace where his counterpart was already waiting while observing the still falling rain. "Here's your coffee, Kakashi-san," Iruka said and offered the steaming drink to the jounin who nodded his thanks as he took the beverage.

The quiet drumming of the rain against their house filled the silence between them, and Iruka rubbed absentmindedly the sleeve of his thermal gear, the small sting of needle lingering on his upper arm's skin underneath the wrapped healing bandage.

"You're fighting differently today, sensei."

Iruka turned to look at the jounin who observed him in silence. "Differently? How exactly?"

Kakashi gave a mere shrug as a response. Iruka pursed his lips and leaned his head back against the chill wall, replaying the three matches they've had so far. He hadn't felt different during their matches, at least not in a way he should deem peculiar to him.

"More confident, perhaps," the jounin's voice filtered through the air as the man meandered past the thoughtful teacher towards the kitchen. The jounin stopped briefly by the kitchen door with a pensive air around him. Then the superior shook his head in light manner, the low voice unreadable and stable. "That last maneuver was daring, to say the least. In case you didn't notice."

With that the man stepped back in, leaving the teacher alone with his thoughts.

The silver bell gave a cheerful jingle as it dangled in front of the gray, miffed eye that glared at the smirking man who was holding the tiny metal sphere.

"Fighting with an empty stomach, are we?"

The wailing grumble was answered with bright, loud laughter.

"If you inch any closer to the soup you force me to disregard the fact that it is meant to be a peace offering, Kakashi-san."

"Maa, sensei, always so eager to bark and a bite. Kami help us if you're ever turned into a dog." The smirk was obvious even when hidden behind the brightly colored book cover.

"Instead of concentrating on my future improbable reincarnation, I suggest you ask the deities to pay attention more closely to the fact that this ladle does have some nice perks concerning its shape and length," Iruka said with a nonchalant tone that was accompanied with a light, teasing smirk pulling his lips as he stirred the deliciously smelling lunch of miso soup on the stove. "The weight isn't too bad either."

The deceivingly bored-looking eye peered over the Icha Icha's pages.

The tiny smirk split into an outright wolfish grin on the tan face.

"...Maa. I'll tidy up the training room, sensei," the jounin drawled and with a sharp snap closed the dirty book, the other's poorly smothered chortles ringing in his ears as he strolled out of the kitchen.

Knowing that the other didn't see the jocular, wide grin on his hidden lips.

The agile feet stumbled and tripped and Iruka let out a yelp as he fell down on his side. As soon as he hit the matted surface, the younger shinobi continued the momentum, rolled on his stomach and scrambled back up just in time to block a set of seven blows sent at his direction. His arms were killing him already and they still had five minutes before the alarm would beep. His legs were kicked from under him and not for the first time he got a good eyeful of the room's ceiling when he fell down on his back with a loud thud.

"Still so eager to spend your time on the floor." He heard the infuriatingly familiar voice tease him and felt the mats tremble from the silently approaching steps. The chuunin shifted his eyes to look at his counterpart who crouched down close to the defeated shinobi and gave his prey a bright smile with the mismatched eyes. "You're making this too easy for me, sensei."

The passing gleam in the narrowing, glaring eyes was all the warning the jounin got before the set of lean legs swung at him on floor level, making him flip backwards on his hands and then on his feet, thus getting away from the kicking teacher. After the low windmill kick, Iruka spun himself back up, rushed to the man's side and landed a couple of hits at the blocking jounin's arms with his trembling fists, then caught the man's forearms in his hands and pulled the older man to meet his raising knee.

To have his hold reversed by the pale, nimble hands and to feel the world tilt suddenly upside down before ending forced down on his stomach in seconds with a weight pressing down on his back and shoulders wasn't part of his plans, though.

The jounin tutted at the disgruntled and struggling man under his hold. "And down again we went, neh? This is getting quite repetitive, you know. Aren't you supposed to teach the kids a more versatile curriculum on fighting styles, Iruka-sensei?"

The low, rumbling growl of the mission room dictator was a just what he needed for the rainy day.

"Let me take the groceries out for you," Kakashi said as he watched the younger man hobble towards their fridge, the thermal clothes swishing on his pained way. The pointed look he received made him give a sheepish smile at the beaten man. "That back of yours took a nasty blow just now, you should take it easy."

"If it doesn't kill me, I'm sure you'll find another way to finish the job, Kakashi-san. I'm fine-," an agonized hiss cut Iruka's argument short as he bent down to pull the ingredients out to the counter and felt a violent jab shoot up his spine. Quickly, a pair of pale hands took hold of his sides and despite his outraged yelp, the copy-nin steered the sulking sensei away from the fridge and then dove in to take the needed foods for their dinner, ignoring the immaterial daggers stabbing his back.

"Like I said, take it easy. We don't want to give Tsunade-sama any more reasons to be drunk all the time, now do we?" Kakashi said and cast a look that was supposed to be teasing over his shoulder, but the sudden seriousness that passed the chuunin's features made him narrow his eye in speculating manner. Having collected the right items, the silver-haired nin placed them gently on the kitchen counter and observed the miscellaneous ingredients before him, the tense silence creeping over the men in the kitchen.

"...I'm sorry, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi turned his head to the side to give a long look at the rueful whisper. Iruka's eyes were darker than usual, the expressive mouth drawn into a thin line, and Kakashi observed as the skillful hands were slowly balled into tight fists. The teacher gave him a hesitant look before turning to look at the food that was piled in between them. "I put you in danger when I didn't tell Tsunade-sama about my first collapse. The ANBU didn't tell either, granted, but I-"

"Do I look dead, sensei?"

Iruka snapped his eyes back up to be greeted with a serious, lone eye gazing at him over the dark mask. After a beat, he shook his head. "..No, you don't."

"Ah. Then, there's no problem on my behalf, now is there?"

A small frown formed on the younger man's forehead. "..I'm serious, Kakashi-san. I should have acted more responsible."

"Well, that's kind of expected since you're the one they all call 'the mother-hen'," Kakashi ignored the light huff sent at his direction, "but there are less than few who have looked after me like you have, sensei...so if I happen to be able to train you in better shape, then I'd consider my debts paid." The jounin's masked smile was heard in those words, and Iruka felt something stir inside his gut as the meaning behind those words was slowly deciphered in his mind. Kakashi took a couple of steps forward and leaned over to the younger man, trapping the other between his hands that were slowly placed on the counter on the both sides of the chuunin's lean body. "Now, just to be sure that you don't burn my food when worrying about my lazy ass, take a good look and tell me if I look dead."

After eying the other for a passing minute, Iruka gave a silent sigh and looked away from the other man. "No. You don't look dead."

"So is there a problem concerning this mission?" Kakashi tilted his head to the side in inquiring manner and gave the worrying man's tense posture a lingering look. A persistent scent tried to peg his interest, but his mind tried equally hard to discard it as a passing delusion due to exhaustion.

"...Hell yes there is." The sudden change of tone made Kakashi blink. Then he spotted the tiny pull of the full lips on the other's face and knew that he could have bet all of his books to be greeted with mischievously smiling pair of dark eyes as he looked back up. Iruka gave the jounin a sly look and Kakashi let his eye stay for a second on the fervently bitten bottom lip on the scarred face. Even when he was certain that he was being currently scoffed, he couldn't help but let out a rumbling laughter at the smirking man who quickly joined him, the kitchen walls echoing from their cheerful outburst. Then, as quickly as it had surfaced, Iruka's laughter died and the chuunin whipped around on spot, almost hitting the silver-haired jounin's face with his high ponytail. "Shit! The fish!"

Kakashi stepped back and wiped his eyes clear from the gleeful tears before settling to observe the frantic man. "The fish?"

"It should be cooking already, otherwise we'll be here until midnight," Iruka said and gave a tiny curse as he opened the wrappings around their main dish before setting to work, giving the jounin quite an impressive show on how quick a set of skilled hands can really be with a filleting knife.

"Could you take out two bowls for me to make the sauce, Kakashi-san?" Iruka asked, his concentration focused solely on the fish he was preparing for their dinner. He had asked for a specific type of fish and wasn't about to let it go wasted. Although, if his mind had payed enough attention at the other man who still stood behind his back, he would have listened to his senses telling him to point the knife at a way more dangerous lump of meat that was suddenly adorning an unhealthily evil smile on its masked lips.

"Sure," the low voice answered and Iruka felt the older man reach for the cupboard over his shoulder. The passing minuscule tremble made him roll his both shoulders on reflex, his busy mind discarding the phenomenon as a chill breeze from the open door. "Do you need more chopping boards as well?" Kakashi's deep voice asked near him and Iruka nodded while finishing the last slice on the fish fillet with practiced grace.

The subtle shudder traveling across his hips from right to left made him almost slice his fingertip in the process. Iruka took a calm breath and gathered his wits, feeling the odd sensations wear off as he shook his head. He was apparently feeling more tired than he had thought.

Kakashi took the boards hanging from the wall and offered them to Iruka who took a hold on the boards with one hand while he reached for the tap with the other to wash his hands before starting to fry the fish. "Thanks. Would you take out the skillet and the oven dish?" He suddenly felt himself stifle an abrupt moan the moment his hand hit the lukewarm water, making him quickly put the cutting boards on the counter, pull his hand out of the spray and dry it on the kitchen towel to get rid of the prickling sensations that were racing over the digits. The dark eyes gave the masked jounin a passing glance, but the silver-haired man seemed to pay no attention to the chuunin's odd behavior as he dug out the pans and dishes from the lower cupboards and placed them on the stove.

"Are you going to fry the fish lightly before putting it to the oven?" Kakashi asked and took the plate with the sliced fish closer to the skillet.

"Ah, no need for you to do that, we already agreed that I'd cook tonight-," Iruka said hastily and gave Kakashi a quick smile before snatching the fish fillets from the older man. Their hands brushed lightly against each other, making Iruka almost drop the dish as a pinching sting of electricity jolted through his arm. With his well-trained reflexes, Kakashi caught the precariously tipping fishes and put them safely on the counter, not noticing how the chuunin rubbed his fingers tentatively together after wiping off a faint trail of sweat forming on the tan temple, the brief display of growing confusion flashing in the dark eyes.

"Watch it sensei. As much as my nin-dogs enjoy their food on the floor-level it doesn't mean that I prefer my food that way," the jounin said with a wink and leaned closer to the teacher with a smile in his eyes, causing Iruka to feel a rather strong electric pulse wave hit his body when the other entered his personal space and making it increasingly difficult to keep his attention on the fish that was supposed to be his current priority. The dark-skinned man took a quick step to the side and rounded to the other side of the older man from a safer distance, praying vehemently that the heat creeping down his neck wasn't caused by a visible blush.

"..Really? And here I thought that the summons start to resemble their owners at one point," the teacher gave a weak smirk at the chuckles from the other man and to his relief felt the strange sensations subside even as he stood quite near the snickering ex-ANBU. Then he shook his head and took a quiet, deep breath to calm his nerves. This was absurd, he could be overreacting for all he knew-

"Ah. There it is," a low voice said suddenly way too close to Iruka's ear and the teacher had to swallow both a curse and a mewl as he felt the trail of very strong trembles dance over the right side of his hip, back and neck as Kakashi lifted his hand and reached to take something from the cupboard that was facing the teacher. Forcing down the erupting tingles that were about to take over his body, Iruka used all of his training to concentrate on the fish and forced his muscles to obey as he plopped the first fillet on the skillet. As the pale meat let out the sizzling promise of nutrition the moment it touched the pan's hot surface, Iruka gave the jounin a brief, suspecting look over his shoulder.

Kakashi blinked at the look he was receiving and then raised the object he had retrieved from the shelf for the chuunin to see. "Salt."

Iruka took yet another calm breath and gave a stiff nod at the man. "Salt. Thank you." Then, with a last, slow look at the bewildered-looking jounin, he turned around and reached for a spatula to flip the fish around.

As the village genius placed the salt next to him, Kakashi's presence washed over his now hyper-sensitive senses and before Iruka could take a step away from the man, a stronger pulse of vicious electricity attacked his system, erupting his body into a frenzied fit of tremors and making Iruka's heart skip a beat. The strong hands that were resting on the counter tensed and Iruka pierced the frying pan with a heated look, turning yet another rising moan into a deep, shaky and long breath with great difficulty. Why was this happening now? After all, they had already deemed it possible for their elements to be connected only to the emotional stress and he hadn't felt anything recently. Sure, he had been worried about the other man, but his stress levels weren't anywhere near the same figures than when he was pissed off. Then a lonely idea pushed eagerly through his muddled thoughts, and as the dark eyes stared at the frying fillet on the pan, the teacher's mind kicked into overdrive as he took the spontaneously surfaced hypothesis into consideration. Then, slowly, the perceptive eyes turned to face the observant, lone gray that was looking at him, and the jounin cocked an amused eyebrow at the scrutinizing look cast at his way.

"..Maa...sensei. I have been complimented on my good looks, but I hardly make a good dinner if you burn the fillets." Kakashi's posture gave nothing away, the man stood as casually as always and carried the same arrogant and witty air around him, but Iruka could bet his entire tea collection that something was horribly off in their situation. What the hell was he missing?

Turning his mind back to present, Iruka scooped the fillet to safety in the oven dish before placing another one on the pan, the sounds of frying meat filtering through the awkward silence that stretched between the two shinobi. Iruka felt the other's eye on him as he fried the pale meat, his body thankfully becoming less heated while he concentrated on breathing through his nose to keep his current situation as well hidden as he could from the older man while his brain worked on the presented argument. There was a high possibility that Kakashi may have finally remembered what their elements could cause when they clashed, but it wasn't said that he was causing Iruka's problem intentionally. After all, the man's own element didn't seem to react visibly on any level at the odd things happening within his body, if the odd incident with the tap water didn't count. There was no other option for him than to observe and keep his...condition..as controlled as possible-

"I could finish the vegetables, neh? Help you out a little." The suddenly flared presence of the older man pressed on Iruka's right side like a heatwave, and as the familiar ache was ignited into life in his groin, the last fillet was almost flung to the wall when he was placing it into the oven dish. The teacher growled, slammed the used pan a bit more violently than necessary on the heat plate he had turned off and shoved the fish dish into the warm oven before directing a significantly strained smile at the jounin who had stopped in surprise with the knife held in one hand and the executed eggplant in the other.

"...I thought I said I'd handle the cooking, Kakashi-san." It took great effort to pronounce the words carefully and clearly while smothering the mewls that were clawing their ways out of his mouth. Iruka took out an another knife and with a definite strike murdered an innocent asparagus as he gave the jounin a long look, his opinion on the matter loud and clear. As a result, Kakashi gave an amused huff and shook his head while in mock defeat put down the chopping knife and the harmless vegetable. Then the older man put the hands in his pockets and pushed himself past the teacher.

"Maa. Fair enough. I'll be reading in the bedroom in case you need me. Later," the low bass resounded through Iruka's figure when the older man walked away to the shared bedroom, leaving the chuunin alone in the kitchen.

The rain started to pound even more against the roof tiles, the increasing drumming going unnoticed by the man who immersed himself into a staring competition with the beheaded green as the bedroom door closed behind his back with an echoing click. While the enthusiastic rain turned into a storm, the dark-skinned fingers curled tighter around the kitchen knife's hilt and a dull thunk echoed in the otherwise soundless space when the tan forehead once again met the cupboard door.

The empty plates clinked against each other as they were piled on the tray. "Maa, that was the best fish I've ever tasted, sensei. Your own recipe, I wonder?"

"Something I picked up along the way when I learned to cook. I'm happy that you liked it, Kakashi-san," Iruka smiled as he took the tray and stepped over to the kitchen where the happy sounds of the coffee maker and the water boiler filled the air. After putting the dishes into the sink, the chuunin filled their mug and cup and took them to the training room where he found Kakashi flipping through one of his books. Biting on his tongue to smother the rising bark on the poorly written trash, Iruka merely rolled his eyes at the sight and crouched down to shove the coffee at the pale-skinned pervert's field of vision.

The jounin noticed the offered coffee and put away his precious book. "Even coffee as a dessert? Who did I kill to deserve this?"

"Shut up, wisecrack. I can be considerate if I want to," Iruka countered and gave a lopsided smirk at the other's exaggerated expression of suspicion on the masked face. Who knew how expressive a pair of silver eyebrows could actually be.

"'Considerate', huh. That's an awfully big word. Are you sure you know what it means?"

"Bite me."

"I might."

"I thought you said you didn't eat from the floor."

"In your case I could make an exception." The lewd leer was blatantly visible in the lone eye, and Iruka felt his ears heat up as he caught the glance.

Swallowing down the suddenly scolding tea he had on his tongue, the sensei coughed a couple of times before directing a suffering grimace at the jounin. "I'm doomed to suffer through your idiotic innuendos until my early grave, aren't I?"

The playful wink felt awfully contradictory to the following words from the jounin. "With our average death rate at the age of thirty-five years, I'd say we should make the best of it, don't you agree?"

Iruka cocked a curious eyebrow at the statement, and even though he knew the man did have a valid point, it seemed a bit dark change of topic after discussing between the lines of engaging in the acts of a healthy libido on the closest flat surface. "Your training has really made you lose your shit, hasn't it?"

"Not really, no," the older man shook his head in light manner and gave a smile with his eyes. "You can thank the ghosts for that."

At those words, Iruka stopped the tea cup to his lips and cast a bemused look at his counterpart. The first thing he had learned from their mutual collegial collaboration was that privacy and Hatake Kakashi was an equation not many got even close to unraveling, let alone realizing that the man indeed had several things he kept to himself. Judging from the slightly unsettled look in the gray eye, even the man himself hadn't apparently anticipated his mouth to blabber on him.

Then, as the look passed the lightning user's eye, the teacher knew he was in for a remark in order to steer the discussion on different track before more revelations were spilled. "Speaking of ghosts and bad spirits, could you enlighten me a bit on how such a neatly living shinobi as you can drink something that smells like manure?" Kakashi gave a pointed look at the tea the other was holding, noticing it being the same pu'erh he had made in the morning. "That stuff could raise the dead if given a try."

Before he knew it, Iruka felt his mouth split into a wide smile. "Well, I need to have something to remind me of you when you're away on missions, Kakashi-san." The silence that dropped on them wasn't expected. A heat took over Iruka's cheeks and he hastily downed his drink while he felt the other's unwavering gaze on him. Then he stood up and took his cup to one corner of the training room, after which he continued his way to the alarm that leaned against the other wall, sensing the jounin's attention on him.

Kakashi could only blink at the teacher's statement. A light joke as it was, he had a nagging feeling that that particular slip carried a deeper layer than it first had appeared. After giving the alarm a pensive turn in the well-trained hands, the chuunin seemed to make a decision and Kakashi could guess what was going on in the brown-haired man's head. Before Iruka could set the time, though, the low voice of the other made him halt on the spot.

"I have an other proposition, sensei."

"Hell no."

"Maa, sensei, at least as a thank you for the dinner, neh?"

"Stop pointing at me with that thing and take it back where you found it this instant." Iruka glared hard at the smiling man who held onto a tiny glass bottle, the oily substance sloshing in the vessel as the jounin dangled it in the air in his nimble fingers.

A dark hum arose from the masked throat and Kakashi took a slow step towards his prey, making Iruka retreat deeper in the training room. "Now, now, don't be so hasty. If I remember correctly, this is part of our orders from the Hokage. You wouldn't want her to hear that one of her most obedient chuunins-"

"One more word and I'll forget that we're comrades, asshole." The baritone was low and menacing.

Kakashi stopped and gave the massage oil a look before glancing back at the agitated teacher, the man looking ready to ditch the 'flight' and go straight for the mean and dirty 'fight' should the situation progress any further. Then the jounin gave a huff and pointed the bottle at the troublesome renegade, his tone carrying a more formal tone instead of the easy-going one. "Take off your shirt, Umino-san."

It did take a second before Iruka could snap his jaw back up. "...Excuse me?"

"I can see that your back is still hurting like hell, unless you always bend yourself only from your knees and hips. This will help to ease the muscles, so I'd suggest to give it a go," the deep voice sounded suddenly closer than a second ago and Iruka had to blink to make his eyes register the man standing a mere two feet away. The masked assassin took a step forward, thus making his muscles tense ready to spring into action as the other's body entered in close range. The gray eye gave him a once-over before the silver-haired head tilted closer. "Either you take it off, or I soak it with the oil as well. Your choice."

The darkly clothed body pressed closer and Iruka had to control his urge to lash out at the man. It wouldn't do to attack the other now that the situation wasn't tied to training. Tsunade would kill them if they had to abort the mission due to an accidental yet imminent death of a team member, and he grudgingly admitted that Kakashi wouldn't be the one ending six feet under should they match to the bitter end.

His early grave started to look more and more plausible for what it came to their mission.

The smallest of tremors ran up Iruka's spine, and despite the adamant resistance he had put up against the massage, he felt the pained twinges jab his back muscles and was thus forced to face the facts. A defeated huff left his lips and the tan man gave a weak head shake. "You'd force the massage on me no matter how I would decline, wouldn't you?"

A happy nod was given as an answer to his question. "Most likely. I'll only work on your back, so there's no need to be so hell-bent against it. Trust me, you won't get much sleep with constant pain disturbing your dreams." The gray eye regarded the dark brown ones with a seriousness Iruka hadn't seen before on the older shinobi. Then the jounin stepped a few feet back to the center of the training room and turned to give a wink over his shoulder, the playful smirk wide underneath the dark mask. "We can use my bed for this, I'll just fetch a couple of towels first."

The rain held its breath, and Kakashi observed in anticipation as the man's facial muscles twitched in a desperate attempt to stop the equally wicked smirk from forming on the full-lipped mouth. Then again, they both knew it was futile now that their ritual of tongue-lashing had commenced. Soon enough, Iruka's eyes flashed and the jounin was served with a teasing, almost sensual smirk from the man. "There's no way in seven hells that you'd get me into your bed with an oil bottle, Kakashi-san."

A mere shrug was sent in Iruka's direction, but the lecherous tone stayed present in Kakashi's words. "Ah, well. I assume you have some other suggestion to offer on how to do it then, if my bed's unworthy for your standards."

Iruka couldn't prevent the wide grin spreading further on his face. The pale bastard had intentionally chosen his words, knowing the bright-minded chuunin couldn't stop himself from targeting the lewd meanings behind the said sentences. Without breaking the eye contact, Iruka felt his body heat up as he carefully pulled his muscle shirt over his head, the burning pain that followed his actions making a quiet hiss escape his mouth. He was really beaten, but nothing that could stop him from dropping the shirt to the floor in an almost stripteasing manner and giving the older man a slow, evaluating once-over before flashing a coy smile at the ex-ANBU. "...You can do me on the floor as well, Kakashi-san. No need to stain the sheets."

The glint that flashed in the lone eye made his pulse speed up a bit, and as Iruka settled cross-legged on the floor and sensed the other man move behind him, an abrupt shudder of anticipation traveled down his body. The oil bottle's cap gave a soft click as it was opened, and Iruka felt his shoulders tense as his ears picked the sounds behind his back, the teacher listening intensely as the oil was poured on the pale hands and then warmed up between the skilled palms, the even breathing of their village's best assassin forming the white noise that mixed the slippery sounds of the scented oil. A faint trace of fresh, just fallen rain poked at Iruka's nose and the chuunin took a deep inhale of the aroma. There was definitely some chakra mixed in the substance for it to give so distinct scent, and Iruka gave a soft chuckle when he realized how at ease the scent had put him. The Hokage really knew her subordinates to the tiniest detail.

"Found something amusing, sensei?"

"Just reminding myself to give a better look underneath a couple of things." Iruka snickered at the thoughtful hum that was heard from behind his back. Then he gave a glance over his shoulder and realized that the pale hands were glowing in faint blue hue.

Kakashi nodded at the teacher's musings as he met the other's eyes, guessing that the other had understood what the blue glow indicated. "Let me know if you start to feel strange, neh?"

Swallowing down the growing nervousness that had again started to creep up his system, Iruka seated himself better on the floor, placed his hands on his knees and gave a firm nod as he released a deep breath to relax his stance. The tingle of chakra was first to dance over his skin even before the firm hands touched his back, and it didn't take long for the deft fingers to find the hurting spots. Iruka closed his eyes while he kept his breathing even, and emptied his mind from the hysteric fact that he was given a massage by hands that could have easily snapped his neck if their owner wished to, and that the thought owner was let unguarded behind his back.

"Not so bad, is it?" Kakashi mused half-aloud as he observed the reactions of the toned body and felt pleased as he worked on several tense spots, feeling the other's muscles submit into obedience under his care and seeing the pained tension ease away slowly. The sight of the chuunin's back wasn't bad either, the oil making the broad shoulders reveal their whole dimension and the strong shoulder blades stood proudly out before making the viewer's look settle on the scarred tissue running next to the spine. The former Hound ran his hand over the scar he had only heard rumors about and had regarded from a distance when they had showered, and heard a faint moan leave the chuunin's mouth, it causing a warm smile bloom on his masked mouth.

...A smile that slowly turned into a dark smirk. Carefully, the jounin gathered his focus.

It wasn't so bad after all. Iruka gave a silent sigh as a particularly nasty clutch of nerves gave in under the jounin's nimble hands and the teacher already enjoyed the thought of not waking up stiff and crippled the next day. Despite their disputes and overall justified suspicion towards each other, the brown-haired nin felt he had to revise some of his opinions on the pale-skinned nuisance. A subtle wave of satisfied tremors ran over his shoulders as the pale hands gave a firm roll on the abused tendons, and a moan dropped from the full-lipped mouth before Iruka's brain caught up with the sensations that were gradually taking over his body. The dark eyes peered halfway open and the previously blissfully uncaring mind of the trained shinobi took a turn into a more aware and alert one. Yet another wave of delicious shivers washed over his upper back, and the breath hitched in his lungs as an unexpected thought knocked against the chuunin's mental barriers.

Would you prefer enjoying me on the floor, Kakashi-san?

His currently relaxed body snapped into full attention as realization dawned on the dazed shinobi, not a second too early before a sudden, aching heat that gathered in his loins stopped the man's heart altogether. The trickle of sweat that traveled down his chest made his nipples harden on its way, which was the final clue on what was happening, giving space for the instincts that yelled in unison about the only sane action he should consider taking right now.

He had to pull away. Immediately.

Something was happening with the chuunin, Kakashi was sure of it. The muscles that were pliant just a minute ago were suddenly steel hard. The thundering, gray eye narrowed and the pale lips pulled into a dangerous smirk as Kakashi compared the reactions he had managed to cause on the brown-eyed pest's body. This was similar to what he had witnessed in the kitchen previously when he had first tested his theory, and felt his gut explode into a flock of butterflies as the scent he had smelled so many times earlier pushed through the massage oil's aroma.

The blade was drawn out.

"..I..I think you've done enough for me, Kakashi-san. You can stop." The warm baritone trembled ever so slightly, and not caring if the man's quiet whimper was intentional or not, he went in for the kill. Silently, he leaned almost flush against the broad back and curled his fingers more firmly around the tense shoulders as he tilted his head near the sweating ear.

"..Maa...If you wish me to stop, then answer the question you know I have waiting on my tongue, sensei."

The huskily whispered words threw Iruka's alarms into red alert. Beside the scorching arousal that was wrecking destruction through his systems, the temperamental man felt his mood plummet into a dark abyss before rocketing back up with renewed vigor when the conclusion dawned on the chuunin at the given request, his situation slamming against his gut like a sledgehammer.

This wasn't a drill.

As he had been trained, Iruka released the gathered strength in his muscles in one swift go and plunged forward in order to dislodge himself from the iron hold on his shoulders, only to feel the strong hands dig more into is flesh and yank him back in place. The tan hands shot up to rip his captor's limbs off him, but all he managed was to claw futilely the deadly fingers and arms pressing him to the floor. As an nauseating wave of blue-tinted haze took over his mind, his pulse sped up considerately and he could feel his lungs start to burn from the lack of oxygen, his breathing having become shallow and rapid. The presence of the other male felt like a lead weight against his body, and the oil that trickled down his back set into fiery trails crossing his heated skin. A low moan ripped through his chest and his body arched like a bow under the powerful man's grip, grinding his aching hips against the matted floor and erupting his nether regions into wanton heat, making him almost miss the murmured words from his torturer.

"You know..Iruka...I think we'll have plenty to discuss if you'd just open that mouth of yours." Kakashi realized he had unconsciously tightened his hold on the other while he had perceived the man's struggling under his hands, and he noticed the astounding amount of sweat that covered the taut, tan flesh, the trained muscles shivering under his gaze. What took him completely by surprise was the low purr that suddenly rumbled from the flushed and twisting body, and his instincts stirred into life on a whole new level when the intoxicating scent he had smelled many times before curled around them into a tight cocoon.

On that note, before he could prevent it, his vision became bright blue.

The ear-piercing screech resembling a flock of birds went unheard by the neighboring houses, the barriers ringing around the light gray house in a chaotic cacophony before the high-pitched cry died as sharply as it had surged through the air, leaving only a deafening silence in its wake.

After the darkness made room for his consciousness, Kakashi found himself staring at the pitch black ceiling with a searing pain in his chest, and as he recovered his hazy senses to get a better view on what the hell had happened to him, a faint sound of shower carried over the unsettling silence in the training room. After a moment of silence, the jounin tentatively raised his hands to his chest, noting the subtle shaking and traces of heat left on them, realizing only then that he was soaked thoroughly in a very similar way as in the day before. A series of water drops hitting the tatami mats was all the silent room heard from the pale assassin as the man picked himself up from the floor and gave the closed bathroom doors a long, intense look.

The thundering eye gleamed like a meticulously sharpened kunai in the dark space.

Filling his suffocating lungs with deep gulps of air, Iruka leaned himself on his uncontrollably shaking hands against the wall of the shower stall, the last traces of scorching arousal being washed away with the chill water running over his trembling body. The dazed eyes followed the rivers of water flow down the drain while the dark-skinned man tried to comprehend what had happened the moment he had rushed under the shower and the first droplets had hit his half-naked body. He had almost fainted from the sheer pleasure that had taken over his veins, nerves and muscles and was powerless to do anything to stop his convulsing body from taking what it had wanted, hence accumulating his dirty laundry for the next day. It was out of pure luck that he had managed to catch Kakashi by surprise the moment he felt the lightning bolt charge the air around them, the fear for losing all of his control kicking his muscles into action and getting him away from the source of his current discomfort. With a last, shaky inhale, the teacher closed his eyes, curled gently his shaking hands into tight fists and shattered a tile with a sharp hit as the dreadful hypothesis was verified to him.

The arrogant, scheming bastard had not only remembered what their elements were capable of causing but had managed to turn the revelation into a weapon, and he had played right into the fucker's hands.

Regrettably, though, the Sharingan user had underestimated his opponent.

Chapter Text

The rainy weather seemed to have decided to lengthen its stay over Konoha, and the villagers made their way in the gray dawn light while watching out for deep puddles and sudden heavy downpours that made the drainpipes flood and thus spill their content on the unfortunate ones passing them that moment. The children sploshed eagerly through every miniature pond they could step on on their way to the ninja academy and civilian schools, knowing that they'd get the scolding of a lifetime if their guardians ever saw them soil their rain gears, not realizing that even if the act itself couldn't be seen, the spilled mud and dirt on their coats and boots was enough of an evidence to grant them with a lecture when they'd be back home.

The ignorance of the innocent.

While holding the tea cup in his hands, Iruka observed the pouring rain from the gaps between their bedroom and training room doors. At the sight of the graphite gay scenery, the tan chuunin gave a silent chuckle, knowing that Shikamaru was definitely having the shadowy hands full with his students at that moment. He could still remember how his classroom had looked like on his first year when he wasn't so accustomed to the devious minds of children, the first rainy day bringing the joys of muddy shoes and equally muddy hands leaving traces on every surface they could reach, making the space look more like a kitchen after a failed attempt to use explosive tags as cake candles than a room meant for diligent studying. He had screamed his throat hoarse that day, and even the neighboring classes had started to pay better attention to their tidiness after he had made his thoughts clear on making an unnecessary mess.

He admitted that it was highly recommended for children to play outside, and even he himself enjoyed making artificial 'lakes' by combining puddles to one another by tiny gutters crossing the yard with his students (he even taught geographical strategies occasionally in that way), but hell, they didn't need to recreate the said lakes inside the school as well with their soaked clothing.

He taught them water jutsus for that reason.

On the thought note of the fluid element, the chuunin felt a tic on his eyebrow. The fingers holding the cup tightened ever so finely on the porcelain surface, and the dark eyes, previously amused, now sharp and hardened, turned their attention to the evenly breathing, silver-haired occupant of their shared bedroom. He could feel his eyes droop from the lack of proper sleep, him having been over half of their night awake and keeping an eye on the obnoxious asshole who dared to sleep with no worries whatsoever concerning the harassed and highly homicidal colleague of his glaring kunais at his head a few feet away. A yawn broke out of his mouth, and Iruka gave a sleepy glance at his matcha, deeming the dose too weak to keep him from keeling over and snoozing to the next week.

Which he would very much prefer over the other, more realistic options he had to face.

Such as the ex-ANBU having been awake for the past fifteen minutes.

"...Morning." Ice felt rather warm when compared to the chuunin's voice.

After a moment's notice, the silvery tuft wiggled and a gray eye peeked over the covers to give him an unreadable look. "...Good morning."

Iruka felt his throat constrict around a bubbling growl, and the chuunin turned the primitive sign of aggression into the cold act of being civilized enough not to pummel the fucker to death right that instant with the man's porn book collection. "Coffee?"

The look in the gray eye became a speculative one. "...Thank you."

With that Iruka gulped down the rest of his green tea and stood up as gracefully as one could with sleep-deprivation, then made his tired way to the kitchen that bathed in the gray, pale light. He filled up the coffee maker's tank and then put the grains in to the opened filter before clicking the machine on, after which he helped himself with another cup of his own source of caffeine by opening the tea tin and taking the needed amount of tea powder with a tea spoon after filling the cup with the needed water, knowing that he needed something to keep his hands occupied now that the dickhead in the other room was up and about.

He would otherwise do something he might regret later on.

As the chugging and hissing of the kitchen machine filled the air and his hands stirred the spring green powder in the water with a tiny whisk made of bamboo, the academy instructor sensed the other man step silently in the dark corridor. Then the toilet door gave a soft click, and for keeping his nerves calm and steeled for such a long time through the last night and the current morning, Iruka bit his cheeks hard to stop himself from chortling at the hysterical thought of the copy-nin calmly finishing his morning routines before battling with his team member over morning coffee made by his future victim. Once having mixed his tea, Iruka rinsed the tiny whisk before putting it back in its place in his wooden tea box, and the teacher took a taste of the new cup, his tired mind twirling idly over the issue of relieving oneself while on duty.

Then again, it could make that perverted lazy-ass faster with his work when he'd perform his missions with a full bladder.

Tea never felt good when it was swallowed through the nostrils, and a tan hand was slammed on the choking mouth as the chuunin fought off a fit of coughs, his whole frame shaking with muted chokes.

The absurdity of their situation was apparently finally getting to him after the poorly slept night.

..Absurd. He wasn't sure if that word could cover all of the things he had passing in his mind the previous night, not to mention the previous days they've spent together on this mission. Having muffled the coughs away, the teacher gave an exasperated sigh with a glare directed at the grass green liquid. "Are you going to stare at my back the whole day or grow a spine and come drink your coffee, Kakashi-san?"

The silver-haired nin appeared almost soundlessly at his side, and Iruka gave the other man a short glance from the corner of his eye. Despite having slept the night through, the eyes over the mask still managed to sport quite dark rings under them, and the teacher frowned at that discovery. The older man looked like he had been awake the whole night. Had he been deceived with the man's act? The jounin calmly filled his mug and took a long inhale of his black god of addiction, but the moment the gray eye snapped to answer his suspecting look, Iruka turned his own eyes away from the man. He could feel his arms tense up on the sense of danger, the anxious feeling taking over his muscles with every passing second with the older nin standing next to him. He knew they couldn't harm each other, at least not fatally, but both the killing intent and the response to it came naturally to them in stressful situations, all thanks to their training as shinobi. What made Iruka's body more agitated, though, was that it wasn't the killing intent that was radiating from the pale-skinned assassin.

It was the same combination of hard, cold arrogance and threat that had been present during the chuunin exam nominations when they had had their first real argument.

"...Did you know that the most common reason for failed missions wasn't caused by the failed compatibility of the shinobis themselves, but that the assigned team and their captain couldn't merge themselves within the team, not being able to really use each other as their shared hands, legs and minds?" The low, even voice felt like a roar through the thick silence between them, and Iruka felt his body twitch in temptation to throw a punch at the man's tone. He had thought that they would have gotten past this phase in their friendship already. Apparently he was mistaken. Then again, that meant that he now had the permission to engage in this exchange of strikes with no remorse.

He turned to face the jounin's stare, and the chuunin kept his voice calm and steady as he narrowed his dark eyes into thin slits while the carefully chosen words dropped from his lips. "Had I known the way you treat your body and mind I would have refused to work as your partner on this mission, jounin-san."

The look in the thundering eye was cold and steel-hard. "You're not in any position to question my resolutions on this matter, Iruka-sensei."

Something vicious and hot curled in his gut, and without acknowledging it, Iruka stepped closer to the masked nin and fixed the man with a fiery scowl promising pain beyond the common sense of teacher's ethics. "What happened last night is all the reason I need to report you to Tsunade-sama and ask her to either intervene or intercept this research. That was unprofessional, unethical and deeply insulting what you did to me, and it's not the way one treats their team members, were they compatible with you or not. Especially when it's you, Hatake-san."

For some odd reason, Kakashi felt his temper turn darker at the younger man's words. "What this mission needs-" Suddenly the blazing, dark pools of intensely burning fire were staring right at him only an inch away and he could feel the warm breath from the man against his surprised masked face.

"This mission doesn't need your personal dilemmas to twist the results, Tsunade-sama doesn't need our disputes to wreck her precious work and as long as there's even an ounce of strength in my muscles and a capable tongue in my mouth I don't need to tolerate this fucking immature shit from you, superior or not. You're endangering our assignment only because you can't handle it when you're denied from something you want and you're forced to make an effort on the things you need." In the back of his mind, Iruka knew that he was giving the man openings more than he should, but both his mouth and body seemed to have made a pack for making his thoughts known to the one-eyed ass without the consent of his brain. The foreign gleam that slowly swirled in sight in the other's narrow eye was also making it harder to keep his lips at a safe distance from the other man's own, not to mention keeping his thoughts straight.

The argument he had meant to give at the lecturing man turned into a low, rumbling purr instead as Kakashi's thundering eye lingered on the full-lipped mouth that formed the scolding words, and after a beat the copy-nin realized that he had leaned his head closer to the temperamental man's angry face, now being able to smell the sweet aroma of the odd, intensely green-colored tea the man had meticulously prepared earlier. Somewhere in the parts of his mind which tried to keep the focus on the words the other was still spilling, he noticed the last notes turn into a shaky mutter and more felt than heard the final word brush against his masked lips.

Then...a snort was heard.

The silence between the now three occupants in the kitchen was tangible, and while he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and used the sheer willpower of a professional genin tormenter to reign in his urge to spin around and toss the water boiler at the assassin who was hidden behind the ever-annoying porcelain mask, Iruka felt hardly any doubt about how their situation had looked like at that moment in the eyes of the chronically ill-timing elite. The man was doing it intentionally. He was sure of it.

The ANBU gave a soft cough, undoubtedly in attempt to dissolve the heavy ambiance and failing terribly at it, and then took out a folded paper with a seal from his belt pouch and pointed it at Iruka's stiff back. "A letter to Umino-san. Hokage-sama believes it's from Uzumaki-kun."

"Naruto...?" Iruka gave a slow blink at the name that rang a chorus of bells in his head. Then his muscles went into action and he swiftly turned around to take the offered paper from the armored shinobi. "Thank you." Without directing even a glance at either of the masked jounins in the kitchen, the tan chuunin strode briskly into the bedroom and closed the door behind him with a clear demand for others to stay out unless they wanted to count their teeth from the floor.

Both the former and the present ANBU stared after the dark-skinned nin in silence before Kakashi shifted his eye to regard the masked shinobi a few feet away. The kohai, after sensing his health being endangered, dared to answer the keen look in the thundering eye after a moment of hesitation, and since he was one of the few that had had the privilege to work with the infamous Hound, the unfortunate ANBU was adept enough in reading his senpai's body language to understand that he had interrupted something with his postal delivery and that his ex-colleague wasn't pleased about the possibility of him witnessing how the high-regarded, retired ANBU captain was scolded about his bad behavior like a snotty academy student.

"I think we have some matters to discuss, neh, Tenzou," said the deep, rumbling voice with an echo of a rising thunder in it. "Coffee?"

As the morning slowly turned into early noon, the double doors to the shared bedroom slid open and Iruka stepped out into the training room with the unsealed, once again folded letter in hand. The chuunin listened the sounds of the house and noticed that at some point the rain had ceased for a while when he had been absorbed by the scrawny writing of his former student. Thinking about the letter reminded him to search for the older man, even though after the first encounter of the day he wasn't exactly looking forward to meet the Sharingan user. They still had matters to argue about, but perhaps the letter could ease the explosive tension they were currently having and make the bastard sane enough to continue with their task rather than risk their necks for Tsunade's punishments that were sure to land on them should they make things any more difficult for the fair-haired medic.

It also didn't benefit him if the man stayed alert for the whole day.

Resisting the demonic smirk that was threatening to display on his face, Iruka opened the doors leading to the terrace and spotted the subject of his musings sitting a small distance away. By the looks of it it seemed that the ANBU had taken off and the jounin was apparently deeply lost in his thoughts.

"It's rude to stare, you know."

Or not.

Iruka gave an eye-roll and stepped to the terrace next to the sitting man. He sat down with his legs crossed and followed the other's gaze over the muddy yard and to the village around them, the nearby houses glistening with moisture on their roofs. Then he poked the older man's arm with the folded paper and answered the other's questioning hum with a small, timid smile without looking at the man. "Naruto addressed this to you as well."

The letter was taken from his hand, and Iruka listened as the paper was carefully smoothed open to reveal the news concerning the blond bundle of chaos, havoc and mayhem they both had had the questionable honor to teach in the art of being a fine shinobi. The rain began once again, the light drips pinging against the already soaked roof tiles in the soothing melody of the beginning summer which filled the air between the two men on the chill terrace. Iruka could hear the breathing of his counterpart, and was also intrigued when a couple of louder sniffs escaped the masked jounin. Out the corner of his eye, he saw the dark gray eye being squinted in a way that resembled...happiness? Then the rustle of the paper made him shift his eyes away before the silver-haired nin looked back up at the rain.

"He's in good hands, it seems." The deep voice was warm and light.

"Seems so, yes," Iruka nodded and couldn't help but give a soft smile. "Even though I'm a bit skeptical if he'd ever stop using the sexy-no-jutsu now that he's been trained by one of the biggest perverts in Konoha's history." The following chuckle made his smile spread wider.

"Unlikely, unfortunately," Kakashi murmured and rolled his eyes amusedly, knowing them both soon having their share on that peculiar skill. Then he shifted into better posture on the damp wooden floor with his hands on his lap, the pale fingers running along the edge of the worn paper, and gave the tan teacher a passing look. "But you still miss him and his antics, don't you." The statement clearly came out of the blue for Iruka, and Kakashi saw the dark eyes widen momentarily at the spoken words. Then a more brighter look took over the tan face while a small snicker escaped the younger man.

"...Yeah. I miss him too."

The dark brown eyes turned to give a wink at the unreadable gray. Then, a small chortle broke out beneath the dark mask and the silver-haired jounin bowed his head. He heard Iruka laugh lightly at his 'defeat', and the infamous copy-nin felt a more genuine smile tug his masked lips. As much as the boy had increased exponentially the amount of gray hair among his silver ones, he was glad to be acknowledged as the blond's teacher by his village, moreover by the genin himself. If only-

"...We've all made mistakes with our students, yours truly in particular, and I have already said that you're a good sensei when all the things are considered." Kakashi snapped his thoughts back to present and was greeted with a sad smile on the chuunin's features. The academy instructor gave a sigh and shook his head, and after the brown eyes had given a lingering look at Kakashi's demeanor the dark-skinned nin fixed him with a more mischievous look. "I'm also not one to get involved with complete morons, even though you do your best to drive me up the walls every now and then."

Kakashi felt a small stir in his gut for the hidden compliment, and gave a pensive flip of the unfolded letter in his pale hands that have been accustomed to hold both dead and living in their grasp. "Good to hear that, sensei." The smile in the mismatched eyes was honest that time. Then the skilled fingers folded the sheet back into more compact form and handed it back to the other recipient. "It's good to hear from the boy as well. Even though half of the time goes in wondering if I'm holding the text upside down..."

"I thought that it wouldn't be a problem for you to read texts that are tortured to death as well as yours usually are." The nonchalant tone did nothing to hide the jab in the rich baritone.

"Actually, against the common belief, my handwriting is quite clear and neat."

The sharpened look was a clear warning for him.

"..I'll go get the bells."

"Maa, hold still, now-"

"It hurts, it really, really hurts!"

"I'd be surprised if it didn't. It appears that we really should have stretched more this section here-"

"Hindsight is a bitch and I'm about to slap one if you don't hurry with it!"

"Mind the language on your healer, sensei. I could make a slip."

"Healer or not, you're still a- KAMI!"

"That's the spirit."

As he emerged from the kitchen while carrying plates in both of his hands, Kakashi gave a small smile at the rumpled-looking sensei who sat waiting for him in the training room. "How's the shoulder?" A pouting huff was the answer, and the jounin had to stifle a snigger at the grumpy look on the other's face as he maneuvered the plates on the floor before sitting on the mat himself with his back against the other man. Iruka did give him the needed privacy for eating and had kept those sharp eyes to himself quite well, but now the humid air made Kakashi want to lower his mask off completely for eating instead of constantly pulling it back and forth on his face. Even he himself got annoyed from it from time to time, and to be honest, he was a bit interested on how the other managed to ignore his most guarded secret so well.

"It's alright...I guess," Iruka gave the shoulder a tentative roll and winced as the joint that had nearly been dislocated gave a sharp twinge. "Emphasis on the guess at the moment."

"We have to be more careful with the other matches, then. You did injure it quite badly."

"I wouldn't have if a certain someone hadn't kicked me to the floor while I was still in the air."

"There's hardly any reason to accuse me for choosing a poor strategy." Kakashi pointed the teacher over his shoulder with his chopsticks and then twirled them in his fingers before piercing an innocent bit of a melon. "You make mistakes to learn from them, especially in combat training since the one who loses usually doesn't get a second chance in the real battle." The narrow, gray eye regarded the brutalized piece of the light orange fruit for a moment. "...You'd be dead by now if I were your actual opponent."

He could sense the teacher lower the chopsticks on the plate.

The pale fists whammed against the wall in a rhythmical set resembling loud drums as they followed their frantically dodging prey, the agile man slipping away each time the hands reached the suitable range. Iruka dove down in a low crouch and with a strong push given by his legs against the wall, he launched himself at the older nin's middle torso and successfully tackled the man to the ground, ending them in a frenzied pile of limbs and grunts as they wrestled for the victory on the woven mats.

Kakashi reached his hands behind the already sweating neck and pulled Iruka down as he rolled on top of the younger man, already settling his weight on the other in order to pin his opponent to the floor and get the chiming bell on the other's hips. Then the chuunin managed to surprise him and pull the lean legs between them and use them to push the copy-nin from above the other before rolling away and stumbling back on the seemingly hurting legs, not that the chased chuunin had any time to concentrate on the dull ache as the jounin was already moving towards him on the ground level, the man definitely aiming at the other's midriff. The teacher darted away from the man's range and used the nearby wall to run upwards it and then plunge himself over the other's head, ending behind the broad, sweaty back and assaulting it with his cutting roundhouse kick.

The jounin spun around to block the oncoming kick in a nick of time with his arms and then took a hold of the kicking leg, seized the shin and reached for the strong thigh in order to fold the leg by the knee and make the other nin lose the balance. Before he could perform that plan, though, Iruka's hands shot out to take a firm hold onto the pale shoulders and the pair stilled with Kakashi having a good grip on he twitching leg and Iruka having a bruising hold onto the copy-nin's upper torso, neither of them willing to let go. Slowly, Iruka increased the resistance in his captured leg and felt his muscles wail under the iron hold of the other man as he tried to twist free. Then, he pulled back his fist.

The sudden strike sent at his direction did make Kakashi lose his hold on the limb, and he ducked away from the following second hit, ending within a short distance from the stubborn assailant.

They stilled, both already sweaty, tired and panting from the day's fifth match, and both the gray and brown eyes darted to check on the set alarm.

Two minutes.

Their eyes met again.

Both the tan and the pale body went into action.

"Would you take the first shower turn, Kakashi-san?"

"Separate showers, sensei? How cold."

"You can only blame yourself for that since I'm not letting you anywhere near my naked ass after last night."

"Maa, you wouldn't be so cruel to deny the man his simple pleasures, now would you?"

The bathroom's double doors echoed with the loud wham as they slid between his head and the tan fist that was sent towards it, and Kakashi chuckled to himself as the outraged stream of colorful curses was heard behind the closed door. The jounin stripped off the sweaty singlet and dropped it in the already quite full hamper with the rest of his dirty clothes. At the sight of the accumulating pile of their dirty clothes, the lightning user mused that they'd need to do the laundry soon again, otherwise they would have to include the results of a chemical war in the research. It wouldn't be pretty, he was sure of it. After having stripped completely, Kakashi turned his thoughts away from the aspects of misusing a pile of soiled clothes in combat and stepped under the warming water while listening as the rain's pattern mixed with the water hitting his body. He always felt content after a long day if he was given the possibility to wash himself, which was something he always argued about with his ninken who weren't so keen on getting any baths. The pale hands reached for the shampoo and the older man released a low purr as he massaged his scalp clean from the sweat and dirt, his mood lightening considerately at the promise of the new pillow Tenzou should have delivered on his bed by now-

Then it hit his nose.

As the water caressed his currently frozen muscles and the suds from the shampoo were rinsed from his hair, the jounin gave another sniff, only to feel a fluttering flock of butterflies invade his gut as the scent became clearer.

...It couldn't be.

The dark eyes were narrowed and Iruka bit his lips as beads of sweat trickled down his stiffly standing body. The tan hands were pressed against the bathroom's doors on the training room's side, and the silent shinobi had his concentration focused solely on the target behind the said sliding doors. He sensed the heavy rain pour against their ceiling, he could clearly sense the warm water of the shower flow on the white tiles, gather into puddles and then go down the drain, he could picture the droplets of warm water travel on the pale, taut body and he could feel the prominent bulge that was currently forming in his pants as his element connected with the electric current that for some odd reason was currently surrounding the other man, but he paid no mind on that detail.

After all, he had a naughty jounin to discipline.

The deft fingers tensed on the wooden surface as a smile not boding well to any deity nor mortal within a twenty mile radius crept on the man's scarred face. Let's see how you like the life's irony, asshole. He let the last restraints fall from his emotions, and the moment his temper went up so did his arousal and for a moment the room spun before his eyes as he struggled to keep the rapidly losing control on his own body as the fundamental base of his being unleashed itself on the unsuspecting victim in the bathroom.

Still dazed from the unnerving scent that seemed to follow him everywhere nowadays, Kakashi backed off from the water in order to clear his thoughts, only to slip and fall heavily on his back with his hips still under the shower spray. A pained groan fell from the unmasked lips and the copy-nin felt his backbone give a mighty sting due to the hard impact with the tiled floor. A series of dribbles hit the copy-nin's skin and the gray eye turned to observe the falling miniature rain that descended upon him from the room's ceiling. He had fallen heavier than he thought to have caused that.

An ominous chuckle dropped from the dark lips. Too easy. A small pulse left from his fingertips.

A horrified yelp of pain and misery rang in the steamed up room as Kakashi felt his crotch freeze under the suddenly icy water, which also turned the still dropping water from the ceiling into icy rain hitting the rest of his pale body with glacial glee. The pale man rolled instantly on his stomach in order to protect his precious bits from the frosty death, only to get pinned to the floor as the water's weight took a turn into something reminding him of his most powerful water dragon jutsu, forcing the poor jounin down flat on his front under the violent shower. With his arms and legs trembling both from the struggle against the heavy stream and the chilled drop of the temperature, Kakashi painstakingly slowly managed to pick himself halfway up under the spray, the mismatched eyes glaring death under the soaked bangs at whatever it was that had decided to interrupt his sacred shower moment.

And he had a pretty good hunch on who that suicidal fucker might be.

Meanwhile, the tan culprit took a deep breath and wiped his face on his shoulder, only to realize that his tank top was soaked through with sweat and thus getting the confirmation that the occurrence was indeed connected to his element's character. With that revelation in mind, Iruka closed his eyes and noticed that the jounin had almost managed to sit up under the spray. The man was indeed professional, he could give him that. A grin that revealed a row of teeth splayed on the chuunin's face. Quickly, the nimble fingers moved up and down against the closed door.

The wet sploshing caught Kakashi's attention as he was about to get back on his feet, and as the irresistible scent once again assaulted his nostrils and made his head reel, a pillar of water suddenly gushed up in the air right next to him before exploding against the ceiling with a loud splash. The weighty shower was abruptly removed from his body and the copy-nin stumbled forward from the sudden sense of lightness on his muscles after having resisted the water's power so strongly. Not that he had any time to revel on that small victory, since the sploshing sounds suddenly multiplied on his right. As he turned his head towards the increasing sounds to see what was happening, he saw rapidly advancing three rows of violently exploding pillars rush towards him. Kicking his legs into action despite the stiffness that was taking them over due to the very cold shower, the ex-ANBU captain slid and scrambled on the slippery floor as the advancing pillars chased him towards the shower stall wall while he tried to stay out of reach for the freezing geysirs. The moment one sneaky, cold wave knocked his legs from under him and made him once more get an eyeful of the ceiling above his wet face, the pale man realized soon enough what was about to happen, and decided that death was too simple solution to get back at his current torturer.

The moment he sensed his slippery opponent slip, slide and fall on his pale back with a wet slap (oh, how he enjoyed the sound of that), the dark eyes flashed with a sadistic glint accompanied with a smirk. Time to scream, bastard. The series of shocked cries that followed the vicious pulses that were sent from his rapidly moving fingertips made Iruka moan in devilish delight. Although he had to bite his lips as yet another wave of delicious shivers ran over his own body when he made the pale jounin shout some more and the jounin's element abruptly lashed out at his own with a loud pang, this one almost enough to break his concentration on his element. As the following, way louder howl resonated from the walls around him and the ache in his pants gave a responding throb, Iruka remembered their last discussion with their Hokage, especially one specific fragment on the speculations the woman had presented them with.

"- - it might also be a personally projected reaction between individuals."

Pushing his focus away from the arousal that was doing horrible things to his boxers by the time the lightning user's sharply striking element had collided with his own for the third time in a row, the sizzling sensei took a better position against the door and then abruptly slid his hands on to one side of the dampened wood.

He could get back to that certain topic later.

Suddenly the water pillars were gone and Kakashi hissed in pain as he stumbled, fell and then staggered back up on his shaky legs, the pale body having been hit more than just a few times with very accurate blows by the violent gushes of water and, to his terrifying discovery, causing his own element to electrocute him in the heat of the battle. Heaving for air, the jounin leaned one shaky arm against the stall's wall and hung his head in exhaustion, an army of bright blue dots dancing in his field of vision. He should have known that the monster of a sensei had something planned in that demonic mind as nothing major had happened between them during the day, unless one counted the verbal brawl they had had that morning. Then, a sight of rapidly moving water on the floor caught his attention, and as a proud example of his notoriously curious rank, without giving it a second thought in his already hazy mind, the jounin turned to follow where the water was suddenly disappearing.

When he found out the roaring reason, it was already too late to dodge. Oh hell no-!

"HAAH!" The loud battle cry left Iruka's mouth as he swung his hands in wide curve across the door, only to hear his victim's equally loud yell echo inside the bathroom before the walls and the foundation of the the house shook as the tsunami he had managed to create by gathering all of the excessive water from the now flooded space hit the bathroom wall and nailed one jounin on its way. With a victorious smirk on his dry lips, Iruka's body slumped against the door and beside seeing that he had managed to wet the doors to their bathroom with his shaking hands, he also noticed the drops of sweat that were on their joyful way of creating a hefty puddle under his trembling feet. The maneuver was clearly taking its toll on him, which he understood when he felt his throat to be dry and hoarse as sand paper. He would need some hydration soon, otherwise he was sure to collapse.

But damn he felt good.

After recovering from the disaster of a massage, he had spent some good hours of the night trying to figure out just how it would be the best to use his rebellious element for his advantage, and gathering all the information he had gained from the previous escapades had given him a few ideas worth trying. A hard throb in his pants snatched his attention away from the mauled shinobi in their bathroom and made his control on the shower's water slack for a fleeting second.

A bad mistake.

As soon as the chuunin noticed his counterpart move rapidly towards the doors behind which he was located, the wooden barriers were pulled wide open and before he could move even a third of an inch to escape, Iruka felt a strict grip take a good hold on his wet top and yank him inside the other room, the pull strong enough for sending him to slide on his side along the wet floor. Pale fingers that soon took a firm hold on his chin made his heart stop for a beat as the first wave of electricity hit his veins, and as he was forced to follow the tight grip to look up at the man who was currently leaning over him, a wave of heated tremors traveled down his body and his pulse sped up as a minor sidenote announced itself to his consciousness.

He was seeing more than just a gray eye.

Way more except for the man's lower face that was covered with a hastily wrapped towel, that is.

And far too close for having anything to do with the word 'chaste'.

He had already seen the other man's body during their showers, but only from the back and even then mainly just the upper part due to them being polite enough to use towels. But now that his eyes were forced to take in the fine specimen of male anatomy that was openly displayed before his eyes, he couldn't keep his mind from categorizing the definitions that suddenly flooded his head with academic precision. The pale body was lean, well-trained and mouth-wateringly attractive on every imaginable scale the teacher could think of. Then again, the jounin's body was also bruised, exhausted, trembling with cold and downright ready to go on a rampage and inflict fatal damage on anything that happened to cross its raging path. Which just happened to be the one unfortunate academy teacher who was fighting a losing battle against his libido that did its best to convince him to get a better look at one specific and not so little detail on the pale man's physique that teased his peripheral vision.

Brilliant.

"Maa, Iruka-sensei, I'm sure someone must have warned you about the dangers of harassing naked people in the shower." The strike of thunder was clear in the deep voice that was slightly muffled due to the thoroughly wet towel covering the mouth, and it didn't take long for Iruka's ears to pick up the ominous buzz that was already getting louder with every passing breath between them. The flush of heat hit his cheeks, and he could feel his nether regions snap into wanton attention as the first and more pronounced pinch of electricity teased his inner thighs.

Suddenly, somewhere behind the murderous copy-nin's back and behind the closed door that led to the corridor, a shift in the air made them both still on the spot. Iruka sensed the pale fingers tighten their hold on his chin as a flash of frustrated indecision passed the piercing, gray eye.

"Sempai? Umino-san?"

The ANBU.

Iruka swore he would attack the man in the near future if this kept on happening.

The silver-haired, currently soaked and well-chilled jounin shifted the hold he had on the chuunin and before he knew it, Iruka was promptly pulled back up on his trembling feet and then unceremoniously pushed out from the bathroom to face the bewildered other jounin who stood in the dim-lit space that led to their kitchen - while holding a pristine white pillow in the armored hands.

Iruka heard the door slide shut behind his back and the shower turn back on, but as he realized how he himself looked like at that moment, the relief of avoiding the electric shock was short-lived. He was dripping wet from head to toes, there were imprints of strong fingers still left on his jaw, he was sure to still sport a very vivid blush on his cheekbones, and according to the heat still lingering in his loins, his arousal was quite lively underneath his now wet slacks that clung to his skin and were undoubtedly leaving very little left for the imagination. Now, when a person gets into a situation where the only outcome will ever be the one resulting with the joys of mortifying awkwardness despite all the efforts the ones getting into the said predicament might perform, the unfortunate individual usually strives to preserve at least one solid factor to help them to get through the embarrassing events with the relative sense of dignity that is directly connected to maintaining the relative delusion of sanity.

"...Good evening, ANBU-san. May I ask what brings you here at this hour?"

For Iruka, it was his manners.

The ANBU gave his whole persona a slow look before giving an equally cautious nod as a silent greeting. Then the man lifted the pillow better in sight, clearly offering it to the teacher. It seemed that the young academy instructor wasn't the only one feeling a bit uncomfortable with the current situation they were in, despite the already numerous moments when the ANBU had seen him in less clothing than a thoroughly wet tank top and soaked black slacks. With that thought in mind, Iruka did feel his spirit lighten up a bit. As embarrassing as the interaction between him and the porcelain-masked assassin had been so far, it couldn't be the man's fault to have a horribly bad sense in timing. Though for the shortest second the teacher hoped that the same quirk didn't apply in combat. Shaking off the odd thoughts from his mind, the chuunin offered the man a quick smile as he strolled past the other to make himself some calming tea and to also prepare some coffee, him moving as normally as one could while wearing clothes that were glued to the skin and sporting a slowly passing erection that kept scraping against the wet fabric on each step. He really needed something to drink, and Iruka was fairly sure that a certain pale-skinned jounin was also in need of one steaming cup after the man had finished his shower.

That and their mission still needed two people to complete it, and he wasn't too keen to probe on the subject of getting painfully aroused to death.

"You can go put the pillow on Kakashi-san's bed, I'm sure he knows what to do with it afterwards." The teacher turned his head to give a bit warmer grin at the ANBU who nodded and went to their bedroom, soon joining the younger nin back in the kitchen after the delivered lump of feathers was plopped on his sempai's mattress. Iruka dug out his tea sieve and a pouch of oolong, and for a passing blink remembered it being the first tea the infuriating bastard had brewed for him during their stay in their current accommodation. A tiny twist in his gut made the teacher worry his lower lip as the blush arose back on his cheeks, but soon the strange feeling passed and the tea was measured in the sieve before setting to steep in the warm water.

"How's sempai treating you, sensei?" Without him even noticing it, the ANBU had managed to step very much closer to his back than the man was a second ago. The quietly presented question made his hands still on his cup, and the sounds of pouring summer rain created an intriguing noise pattern with the chugging of the hard-brewing coffee maker next to him.

Then, Iruka turned to give a look over his shoulder at the white mask peering at him. "We're doing well, against all odds. Relatively speaking, at least." The dark eyes narrowed; he didn't like the tone in the other's question.

The ANBU nodded and then turned his masked head slightly to look over his shoulder down the corridor before shifting his shadowed eyes to regard the wary sensei. "He can be a handful occasionally, but he's a good shinobi, sensei." The voice of the assassin was amused and warm, light even, but that didn't lessen the odd feeling that had started to settle in Iruka's gut. What was the man aiming for?

With a frown, the teacher turned his attention back to his cup and removed the sieve before taking a testing sip of the sweetly smelling liquid. "True. I'd say he's an excellent shinobi, ANBU-san." The man's presence hit his body the instant he realized that there were hands resting on his both sides on the counter. He could hear the muffled sound of the masked man's breath puff against the porcelain mask, and as the rain banged even louder against their ceiling, Iruka was sure that he could sense the man sniff his skin.

"..He's also a man, sensei," said the now hushed voice right next to his ear, and to his unpleasant discovery Iruka could feel the other settle almost flush against his back. What made alarms go wild in his head wasn't exactly the man's quietly whispered words, though.

It was the very distinctly interested set of male genitalia pressing against his ass.

Forcing his surfacing reflexes to stay put, Iruka curled his fingers firmly around his tea cup, hearing the porcelain crack ever so subtly under the slowly added pressure. Not that the other seemed to take the tiny hint. "...I ask you to step back now, ANBU-san." His murmured warning was carefully pronounced and weighed.

Not apparently paying any heed at the chuunin's threat, the man pressed him more against the counter and Iruka let out a quiet hiss as his hurting muscles were pinned against the hard surface. Luckily his own misplaced arousal had subsided already as the remnants of the stinging electricity had died away from his system, otherwise it would have been more than just a hiss escaping his mouth. While taking a deep breath, Iruka focused his glaring eyes on the yellow-tinted tea. Either the ANBU enjoyed the idea of a challenge when closing in on his targets or the man was missing a shuriken or two from his mental holster. A warm gust of breath ghosted against his neck, and for the first time in his life, the chuunin wished he had his full chakra reserves so that he could take on the intrusive elite shinobi, not caring if he went down burning.

"Are you, by any chance, taken yet..Umino-san..?"

The first crack appeared in the tea cup as Iruka felt his lungs dysfunction at the surprising yet apparent suggestion. The ANBU continued, the light voice puffing moist air against his now burning neck as they repeated the question. "Are you?"

"Nope. He isn't."

Iruka felt the ANBU's body stiffen completely against his back, and he could only stare numbly at his cup as the deep, hard voice resounded through his figure. Out of the corner of his eye, he observed how the hands trapping him against the counter twitched ever so subtly as Kakashi calmly continued to elaborate on the currently discussed matter. "Iruka-sensei isn't currently taken by anyone, kohai. Not you, not me, and I suggest that you drop that intent unless you want to see what a stray lightning bolt can do in a confined space."

Quietly, the surrounding hands retreated from the counter and after a moment's silence a pop echoed from the spot which just a second ago had a busted ANBU. Releasing the breath he had been holding, Iruka let his fingers slack around the almost shattered cup. Sensing the older man's eye stare at him behind his back didn't put him completely at ease, though.

"Are you alright, sensei?" The tone was unreadable, but the chuunin could bet that the look in the gray eye was concerned on some level.

He gave the silver-haired man a curt nod and relaxed his body with a couple of deep breaths. "That was rather...unexpected, one could say. Caught me by surprise."

A pensive hum carried through the tense ambiance as Kakashi stepped next to him to the counter. The look in the gray, narrow eye became noticeably surprised after a moment as the man noticed the bitter aroma that wafted in the air. "You made me coffee?"

For a reason he didn't feel like venturing at that particular moment, Iruka felt a hot blush take over his scarred cheeks and he gave his nose an embarrassed scratch. "Ah..well..yes. I thought you might..need it..after the shower.." He had already forgotten why it wouldn't be wise for him to stay in the same room with the eccentric lightning user due to the wooing assassins dressed in way too skin-tight spandex, but now that he remembered, his alarms went into a frenzy for the second time that evening. Scratch being almost molested by a horny ANBU, he would soon get tortured to a pained yet undeniably well pleasured death by an electric current the moment the infamous ex-ANBU wanted to make him pay for his latest stunt.

The evil gleam that took over the gray eye was all the confirmation he needed for preparing himself for the jounin's undoubtedly inventive penalty that was awaiting him.

"Well, thank you for that gesture, but you still owe me a massage."

"...What?"

Inventive indeed.

Chapter Text

The rain had finally stopped, and the chill morning air gathered its children to slip and slide over the still wet and dripping roof tiles on the houses of Konoha. Amidst their play, the tiny ghosts greeted the light which was tinted with silver and gave them a promise of a partially sunny day in the beginning of a warm summertime on its passing way over the serene landscape. The difference in the temperature between the day and the past night had created a snake of fog that circled and flowed silently down the deserted streets in its slumbering grace while the peaceful silence held its breath as it suddenly heard the first sounds of awakening arising from a light gray house as it was floating by.

True to his pedantic nature, Umino Iruka had distinct preferences when it came to waking up in the mornings.

Waking up to sunlight was always the most preferred choice. If it happened during a day off, all the better.

Waking up to an alarm wasn't too bad, either. What awaited after the beep was to be dealt with only after the first cup of tea for that day, and nothing could make him discard that little heaven of his before hitting the usually very hectic and tiring day. Not even ANBU.

Waking up to a combination of an infernal hangover and vivid Naruto was never nice, but he lived.

Waking up to an unnervingly deep silence that had taken over the household he was currently forced to share with an ex-ANBU captain was never even an option on his mental list of mundane morning scenarios, and when his bleary eyes spotted the other's empty bed, his nerves were far from being sleep-induced and lax. They had called it a night shortly after the uncomfortable incident with the oddly behaving ANBU operative, and Iruka was grateful for that small morsel of mercy on Kakashi's part. Not that he got any good sleep because of the agitated body of his.

..That ANBU. With a small groan, the teacher turned on his back and rubbed his tired eyes before giving a brief glare towards the ceiling, the narrow eyes noticing the line of light that traveled across it. The glare turned into troubled frown, and Iruka let a small, frustrated huff leave his lips. What had the ANBU been thinking? Not much, obviously, at least not with the head the man should have been using the second Iruka had given out the first warning. A hand rose to wipe the stray strands of hair from the tan forehead before lowering to cover the slanted eyes, and a more distressed sigh was heard in the silent bedroom.

"Are you, by chance, taken yet...Umino-san...?"

The lone hand found its twin on the chuunin's bare chest and crossed paths with it as the brown-haired head tilted a bit to the side, the dark eyes thoughtful and the full lips drawn into a downcast line.

...How did the ANBU know?

He didn't exactly yell his preferences out in the open, since many parents might be more than just merely narrow-minded on those matters, and he didn't want to put his students through any more trouble than handling a kunai without accidentally disemboweling themselves (or him) was already giving them. Furthermore, he was fairly sure that there was no slot in the record sheets for pointing out the shinobi's sexuality, at least he hadn't spotted any when he had updated their shinobi register with Shizune-san. One couldn't be sure about Tsunade's ways of handling things, though. A small, dry chuckle left his mouth at the thought of poor Shizune-san being sent to gather the intel on Konoha's shinobis' bedroom activities. Genma and others would have put the kunoichi through hell and more if she had ever made the mistake on asking them about that. She had already looked ready to pass out while they had talked about their misbehaving elements with the Hokage. The chuckling mouth fell back into frown on that passing idea.

Could that have given him away?

...Then again, the state he had been in when he was shoved out of the bathroom where the other male of their team was unmistakably showering could have clued even Naruto that perhaps Iruka wasn't one meant only for the ladies' entertainment.

If given any better thought, his pheromones could have easily been smelled a mile away at that particular moment.

The man's hands found themselves back on the scarred face, and Iruka took in a deep breath through his nose as he pressed the cool palms against his forehead. He really needed to gather his shit now. He couldn't risk to jeopardize their mission with his intimate problems, at least not by adding any more to the already growing list of things gone awry, starting with his ass of an element. Moreover he had to avoid pulling Kakashi into this mess, although if he didn't know better, one could have thought that the man was really putting an effort on keeping him on the edge and for things becoming more than bizarre between them. Namely, what the masked jounin had asked as the compensation for literally saving his ass wasn't exactly keeping things straight on any scale considering their mission.

His karma was apparently having a blast in a gang bang with his sins somewhere.

Then, slowly, the thought of the other man made the chuunin's lips pull themselves into a small, almost rueful smile and the dark eyes gave the ceiling above him a slightly sorrowful look.

...It...had been a while for him...neh.

Then a flicker of shadow caught his attention, and being alerted back to present from his swirling thoughts, the young sensei whipped his head to the side on his pillow to observe the double doors that led to their training room, the wooden barriers between the two rooms being left slightly ajar and therefore permitting the morning light into the otherwise rather dark bedroom. Slowly and carefully, while ignoring the dull pain that became noticeable on his sides, shoulders, upper back and thighs, Iruka peeled the covers off of him and rose to sit on his futon, his ears listening intensely the sounds around him. The rain had stopped during the night, and both the narrow ray of light as well the shushed ambiance that surrounded him indicated it to be rather early still. Approximately six-thirty, if the intensity of the light was anything to go by. Now what did a jounin with a lethargic reputation do at that hour? As an afterthought, the dark eyes searched out the pile of the garishly colored perverted books of the silver-haired man, and after comparing the counted quantity with the known figures in his mind, the scarred cheeks lost some of their color as the numbers didn't match.

Ah hell no.

To a man who had been said to have quite a wild imagination, the hypothesis he now faced could have been described more accurately as 'downright disturbing and deeply traumatizing for a lesser shinobi'.

The flickering motion happened again, and as the awakened curiosity took the best of the rising hysterics, Iruka silently crept on his knees and then ever so nimbly rose to his feet, the shapely legs carrying the boxer-clad chuunin to the doors without a sound. As he held his breath, the teacher leaned closer to the gap, the dark eye peering through the narrow slit in order to see what it was that had awoken him from the light sleep he had been enjoying after several hours of tossing and turning on his mattress. He could only see the spacious training room that bathed in the cold morning light, and not a sound was caught by his ears. A small frown started to form on his face, as Iruka was sure that he had sensed there to be someone, and his eyes rarely played tricks on him. Then he spotted it.

A hint of movement traveled through the air.

He didn't see it, but the sound of silent feet landing on the woven mats was clear indication enough. His eyes squinted more to catch the movement, and even though somewhere in the back of his head he knew it to be actually more than just silly to spy on one's mission partner, moreover a nin with far more field experience than he could ever gather even if he had worked sixty years after his death, the thrill of witnessing something private concerning Hatake Kakashi was sufficient to root him on the spot.

Even the reminding thought of one missing porn book didn't lessen his desire to peek a bit more, although he could feel his cheeks burn a bit on the possibility of seeing way more and something very different than he had intended. Then again, if the prick was obnoxious enough to jerk off in their training grounds, he was more than justified to catch the man cum-handed and give him a taste of his knuckles. Their matches were challenging enough without him slipping on something that certainly didn't have its place in their current assignment. At least not in that room and moreover wasted on some mere tatami mats. The passing odd thought made his pulse beat a bit faster and he had to resist the urge to bang his head against the door in order to discard the uninvited idea.

This wasn't the time nor the place.

A sudden series of silent steps swishing against the matted floor made him focus back to the gap. To his disappointment, he still didn't see enough. Damn. He had to open the gap a bit...but that would risk Kakashi to spot him. The sound of the movement turned into more fluid thumps of feet falling on the floor, and if he strained his hearing a bit, he could pick up the pattern of the controlled breathing from the direction of the rhythmically falling steps. The teacher hesitated between his now raging curiosity and the sense of propriety between colleagues, the former gaining more points with every missed sound made by the pale body behind the wooden doors. Maybe if he could shift to look from the other side of the gap...silent like a falling feather, the sensei shifted his body to the other side and at the same time, ever so subtly, pushed the other door just half and inch more open in order to gain a better view to the room, his interest having turned into outright want to see what the hell the other man was up to while Iruka should have been sleeping. Once more, the dark eye peered through the now more opened gap between the double doors, and Iruka focused his gaze in the other room.

What he saw made his salivation triple.

A thin sheet of sweat glistened on the pale, broad and perfectly sculpted back and shoulders as they twisted and turned while the pale, diligently trained arms punched the air and wove their way through the imaginary opponents. The lean legs and the firm buttocks showed their true shapes in the strong contrast of cold light against the dark fabric as the agile limbs traced their patterns on the floor with deadly ease when one of the most feared jounins performed what seemed to be his own, modified version of the regular morning calisthenics designed for Konoha's shinobis. The dark eye was narrow and focused over the dark mask, and Iruka could bet that he saw the hidden lips parted for breath under the fabric as a sliver of light traveled across the jounin's face. The man before Iruka's wide, staring eyes was a well-built, divinely packed and tightly wrapped package of one fabulously proportioned copy-nin, and Iruka had to bite his lip as he felt his body respond to the visual stimulus he found himself suddenly enjoying. The jounin was sheer skill and sexual attraction in one body, which was something the sensei had gotten the questionably chance to confirm when he had had his first admittedly good and literally closer look at the naked bastard during the last night's shower showdown.

In a blink, Iruka had his back pressed against the door, a hand was lifted to his mouth to keep him silent and his lungs worked overtime in order to prevent him from hyperventilating. As the things stood, they had already their hands full with the research without Iruka starting to develop any strange desires towards his arrogant mission partner. That resolve didn't lessen the tightness in his black boxers, though, and the tan jaw tightened as the chuunin grit his teeth together to hold in a rising moan that was stalking its opportunity to crawl out of his throat.

Be careful now, don't let it take over you-

As an opposing argument against his logic, the tan hips pressed more firmly against the wooden door, and the sense of weight settling against his buttocks made him bite his palm in order to keep silent as the feel of something solid against his body made his senses burn with a blue flame. With a shaky breath, the chuunin forced his legs to move and stepped away from the enticing hard surface, his head swimming with a mixture of distant memories and suddenly surfacing desires. Only one thing that kept him from striding into the training room and claiming the silver-haired man as his own was the same thought he had had running in his head like a mantra after the ANBU had vanished and he felt the intense gaze of the older man on his restless body.

The shinobi is as strong as his will. You have a will of fire. A will of fire, Iruka, with an iron control to boot.

Fire and iron.

Fire and iron.

Unconsciously, the other tan hand rose to rub the spot where he once had had an imprint of a set of teeth, the once healed mark giving a small throb at the memory and thus causing a shudder to travel down the chuunin's spine, while the other hand was removed from the trembling lips to wipe the now sweating face and throat as Iruka balanced his breathing and willed the burning ache away from his hips with great difficulty.

What he needed was his tea.

Preferably iced.

Iruka took a deep breath through his nose and resisted the urge to rip the gray-colored, small machine into rather large pieces. Who in their right mind invents a machine that extracts the drink in mere tiny drops? The merry concert consisting of dripping, chugging, gurgling and fizzing was driving him insane. After a final glare towards the innocently percolating coffee maker that was clearly enjoying itself more than was written in its manual, the teacher reached for his tea box, and with practiced efficiency the deft fingers searched out the tea he needed and put the right amount of dry leaves into the prepared sieve, the tiny metal net then being fluidly dipped into the perfectly tempered water for a steep. A strict look was passed towards the chugging machine next to him, and as if sensing the looming danger, the coffee maker went silent. As a result a bright, bit smug chuckle escaped him while his hands reached for a bunch of apricots. Apparently he still had what it took to silence the troublemakers.

The rhythmical chopping echoed from the kitchen walls as the tiny orange fruits met their deaths in the hands of the well-trained younger nin, the slices of fish and bread already waiting on their own plates on the tray. Being dressed up on his regular black top and slacks and after having tamed the tangled hair into a pointy ponytail, the teacher felt his mood having slightly improved from what it was when he had woken up. The laundry would still need their attention, since they had forgotten to take care of that during the couple of days with more or less...pressing matters at hand. The apricots were dropped from the chopping board on the plate next to the chopped pears and melons, and to his pleasure he had even found some figs from the far corner in one cupboard. The sweet scent of his morning oolong gradually managed to put his mind at ease, and the bright sunlight that teased him from the narrow window next to the backyard's door made his whole being itch on hitting the terrace for sunny breakfast.

All in all, he could happily proclaim to be a content little chuunin with all of the life's priorities put back to their rightful places.

A calm hum escaped the full-lipped mouth as the teacher poured the jounin's coffee in the man's mug and put it on the tray next to his tea. Then, as the tan hands took hold on the heap of a wholesome breakfast, the dark ears listened carefully in search for the other's location.

The man was still in the training room.

The teacher set towards the door leading to the wooden terrace at the backyard and managed to maneuver the door open with his legs and hip. The sunlight hitting his eyes with full force and the scent of fresh air caressing his nose made the small smile widen on his face, since after so many days of rain it was a delight for him to see something else than grayness and wetness in the surrounding scenery. The doors to the training room were left wide open, as it had formed into a habit for them after a while, and the closer he slank on the balls of his feet, the more he could hear the noises of the other man's movements echoing in the spacious room. The moment he reached the edge of the door, the chuunin took in a calm breath.

"Fire and iron," the encouraging whisper was silently mouthed and Iruka stepped in sight to the opened doors while automatically casting a beaming look inside the room, accompanied with the sunniest smile he ever could muster. Naruto did take after his sensei on some matters, after all. "Good morning, Kakashi-san." Despite the steel-hard grip he had on his present demeanor, his voice sounded strange in his own ears, and he was grateful of having his hands occupied and therefore making it more challenging to slap himself. He was not feeling giddy.

"Ah. Good morning, sensei." The second he had heard the man's greeting, Kakashi had stopped in the middle of a sharp punch meant to split an opponent's face in half and had turned his head in the other's direction to give a brightly smiling nod on his behalf...with the sleeveless, dark singlet covering the pale body.

Had anyone as much as even dared to imply that Iruka felt a bit disappointed at the current view he was presented with, they would soon have ended up with ignited gunpowder in uncomfortable places. Although the silver-haired nin didn't seem to pay attention to the slightly fallen smile on the other's face since he had spotted what the younger man was carrying, more precisely the familiar mug with enticing dark liquid in it. "Coffee?"

The question appeared to pull the oddly looking chuunin back to present. "Oh, yes, it is. Though I didn't mean to interrupt you, whatever it was that you were doing, Kakashi-san. Apologies. I'll go to the terrace if you need to finish up." With that the teacher gave a small bow. At least he still had his manners to back him up if everything else failed. The older man turned fully to face him and waved his hand nonchalantly, the mismatched eyes turning into one more smile on the masked face and thus missing the keen glance his bare biceps were given.

"Maa, I was done here anyway, plus I can't let the coffee go to waste, neh? Especially if it's made by you, sensei," the teasing wink he gave to the chuunin made a sly smirk creep on Kakashi's hidden lips as he noticed the slightly wary look creep in the younger man's dark eyes. Thus he couldn't help but give an even more evil smile as he spotted the opportunity to tease the tan man, which was more than justified in his opinion. His ass felt still a bit chilly after the last night's cold shower. "Unless of course you wish to join me. Perhaps I could show you a couple of cool moves I've come up with for using only the lower body."

If not for the wry smile that pulled on the man's lips, Kakashi could have bet to have his ass feeling more than chilled after a beat if the briefly passing, intense glint in the teacher's eyes was any indication.

"Keep your pants on, pervert." With those words, the smirking chuunin calmly turned his back to the sweaty jounin and sat down on the terrace, the nimble fingers setting the tray down next to the man and picking up the steaming tea. "If you wish to have breakfast, then I suggest you put that lazy ass into action and dig up our laundry for washing. I'm out of fresh clothes and I'm pretty sure your situation isn't peachy either, if the current reek is anything to go by." The chuunin gave the masked man a sharp, teasing look over his shoulder as an emphasis on the last words.

The sly rise of the silvery eyebrow was not the reaction Iruka had wished for, though. "Do you want to come and scrub me squeaky clean as well in case I forget to wash my hands?"

"It's hard to appreciate clean clothes if one doesn't have the hands to pull them on, Kakashi-san."

Unlike his kohai, Kakashi knew when he was given a valid warning.

"How do you do it?"

"Hmm?" Iruka lifted his eyes from the fish sandwich and turned to give the jounin next to him a wondering look. "Do what?"

"Make the aftertaste so full." The jounin swirled what was already his third cup of coffee and gave the beverage a pensive, almost suspicious look over the dark mask. "One could think that you drink tea just to hold up the appearances. You're full of surprises, sensei."

A snort met the amused pondering, and Kakashi saw the teacher shook his head with a wide grin on his face while the smiling eyes cast a playful look at the jounin's direction. "Well, I've never met a man so diligent in making tea if not for being a teaholic himself, so I guess we're even. One could think that you're trying to seduce me, Kakashi-san." The grin took a sharper twist, and for the briefest moment Kakashi found himself wondering if Iruka's canines had always been so sharp.

"Maa, you certainly don't seem like an easy prey should anyone try that, if the incident with Shiranui was any indication." Kakashi chuckled and was pleased at the loud bark of laughter heard from the other's direction, since he had been expecting a fist. "Even the ANBU is sure to remember that from now on." The warm laughter died and for a passing moment, an awkward silence took over the two men on the sunny terrace as soon as the words were said, and Kakashi smothered an annoyed groan at his slip. He had meant to tease the prudish man later with the note, true, but now as he felt the stretching silence gain some weight, yawn and fall in content sleep right between them, he wasn't so sure if that was all there was to it. Then there was also the more interesting question of how the sensei had taken what had happened the previous night. The jounin watched as the brown, narrowed eyes darkened ever so slightly at the mention of the masked kohai, and when the keen look turned into more unreadable one, as an afterthought Kakashi's muscles set themselves ready to bolt should the now seemingly more agitated man decide to lunge himself at the jounin.

Then, the chuunin's mouth twisted into a lopsided smirk and the teacher sipped his tea while the brown eyes turned to look elsewhere over the slowly drying wet grass that shimmered in the summery light. "..Good to know, Kakashi-san."

As the ambiance slipped back in being more comfortable among them and they concentrated on their breakfast, Iruka couldn't help but sneak a glance at the silver-haired man who was munching on a bite underneath the dark mask, the mismatched eyes closed against the bright light and the man's freshly showered body slouched at ease, at least on the surface. The dark eyes turned back on the fourth cup of yellow oolong that the tan hands cradled on his lap, and as the sliver of a strange sensation traveled through his system, the teacher had to take a long sip in order to swallow down the surfacing odd feeling with the sweet tea, the sun feeling a tad bit warmer against his skin as the last, sweet drops of the slightly chilled drink lingered on his tongue.

Fire and iron.

Iruka felt his calves wail as he spun and dashed away from the surprising counterattack the other had managed to pull at his wide swing, not having anticipated the jounin to rely so readily on the long legs to drive his opponent away from close range. The jounin balanced himself on one leg, then landed down the second leg as well, shifted his weight more solidly against the matted floor and leaped after the tan teacher, the silver bell giving a sharp chime on the sudden turns the pale shinobi made during his pursuit after the target, the racing feet of the men thumping against the fibers of the woven mats as they circled each other, their fingers ready to catch the glinting goal when the most suitable opening presented itself. The sun crept over the abandoned breakfast tray and reached the matching pair in the now more illuminated training room, the rays of light dancing on the dark clothing and the contours of two well-shaped bodies hidden underneath them, it catching eagerly on the drops of sweat on both the tan and pale skin and making them gleam like pearls on the quickly moving nins.

He could see the other's plan the moment the jounin's left leg landed on the floor, and a smirk splayed itself on the chuunin's face. He plunged down to the side away from the advancing assault of a wide grab, one of his strong hands flexing beneath him as the other supported his balance against the floor mat as he felt his body roll over its axle and repeating it a few times, the maneuver increasing the distance between him and the sneaky jounin.

The warning shout came too late for him, though, as his nose suddenly collided with a rather solid obstacle that stopped his momentum quite efficiently, hence making him fall backwards from the force of impact the moment his moving energy took one-hundred-an-eighty on him and with most of his thoughts being suddenly concentrated on the sharp wave of fresh pain on his now maimed nose.

Well that was embarrassing.

Except before he fell completely on his back on the floor, a pair of firm arms took a hold of him and yanked him up against whoever it was that was unfortunate enough to collide on hip-level with his swift rolling tactic. Knowing that not even Kakashi had a mind suicidal enough to teleport himself to the other side of the room just for the hell of it since neither of them had enough chakra to even dare to consider that move, Iruka, with his healing chakra already tending his nose to lessen the excruciating pain it was effectively emitting, quickly took in the facts that suddenly made his neck prickle. He had been acquainted with those arms and the armored body before.

"Good morning, sensei. That was a nasty bump. Isn't a shinobi supposed to remember to keep their eyes always open in the battle?" A mellow, amused voice filtered through the porcelain mask next to his ear.

The instant after the words spoken by the ANBU had wafted against his skin, the arms holding Iruka felt intrusive on his quickly tensing body, and with the throbbing nasal pain promptly forgotten, the teacher quickly removed the armored hands off of him and stepped a few feet away from the masked assassin, in his haste missing the slow, subtle way Kakashi ambled towards them from his side of the training room, the narrow eye set in a bored yet stern look at the abruptly appeared ANBU. As his upbringing had it, Iruka, against his initial urge, held his curling fists down despite the fact that the elite nin's hands had clearly itched for more than just a steadying hold on his body.

One did not simply slap an ANBU and walk away from it on their own feet.

"It does look like the sensei's nose could disagree on the relevancy of that sentence, since the way I saw it it wasn't his to know that he might have a potential shinobi collision in his hands, don't you think?" The deep, calm voice inquired from Iruka's other side, and the sensei turned to give a slightly wary look at the silver-haired nin who had silently appeared beside him. Something was off in the air around the older shinobi, and as the beep of the alarm pierced the air, the timid silence bared its fangs to the three men. Kakashi was the first to break the heavy ambiance, the gray eye narrowing a fraction at the ANBU who gave nothing away with his almost relaxed posture as the kohai answered his former captain's strict look. "Am I just old-fashioned or isn't interrupting a match considered as bad manners nowadays, kohai?"

"Not if you were given the order to, brat."

Both Kakashi and Iruka spun around to meet Tsunade who was observing them with a small purse of her lips, the inhumanly strong arms crossed under the ample cleavage. The Hokage gave a sharp look at them both and then nudged her head at her masked guard behind the jounin's and the chuunin's backs. "Make us something to drink, will you."

The manicured fingers traced the recently healed nasal area and the amber eyes scanned through the map of bruises on the teacher's body. "How are we doing over here, Iruka-kun?"

"Generally fine, Hokage-sama. Thank you," Iruka said and gave a tentative rub at the scar on his nose after the fair-haired medic had scooted back to her tea. To his relief, no stinging pain was detected. Sneezing was utterly horrifying when dealing with an injured nose.

"We're progressing, Tsunade-sama," Kakashi said with a curt nod and gave the pensive chuunin who poked his nose with great interest a brief, amused glance.

A groomed eyebrow was cocked at that answer. "Care to report a bit more, Hatake?"

Kakashi gave a small shrug, but nevertheless, feeling the interested gaze of the younger man on him did make him more aware of his body language. "Iruka-sensei has improved his skills as a chuunin. His stamina has increased a notch and currently I find him a very resourceful opponent. He manages to land hits more than he was able at the beginning of this mission and does value the given advices in order to polish his moves." The gray eye turned to give a short smile at the now seemingly speechless teacher as the infamous Hound went for his prize. "Despite not sensing any particular changes in my own performance, I have gotten a chance to hone my own combat tactics. Iruka-sensei seems to be an appraised teacher for more than just taming Naruto into obedience." And there was the heat on the horizontal scar that made his mornings.

"Is that so?" Tsunade's tone was impressed, but Kakashi did notice the surprising lack of surprise in the Hokage's words. Then the painted lips turned into a sunny smile as their leader turned her focus on the dark-skinned sensei who currently pondered on life and its twist by staring at his tea leaves. "Do you wish to add anything on Hatake's report, Iruka-kun?"

In Iruka's silent opinion, the woman's voice was sweet as honey and thrice as stingy as the bees that had made it. In any case, he had a motherly interrogating question to answer, and with a quick glance at the jounin on his side, the teacher nodded his head. "Kakashi-san has been good both as a training partner and as a mentor for what it comes to developing my fighting skills. I have noticed that some areas, especially the ones that need speed and physical strength, have improved on much firmer ground if compared to the situation when we trained only occasionally." He could sense the gray eye on him as he continued, and did his best to concentrate on the feeling of cool porcelain under his fingers. "As for Kakashi-san's own skills, I can't form any coherent picture on that since he has never used his whole arsenal during our sessions. On the more personal level, we have gotten better acquainted, which has undoubtedly given its impact on our mission as I have gotten the privilege to be considered as a compatible comrade to him." A teasing smirk tugged at his lips. " He's still a prick, though." An abrupt gurgling chortle left the masked nin in question, a sound which resembled choking on one's coffee when suppressing a surprised laughter. When he turned to meet the gray eye, Iruka was pleased to find it staring right back with an air of hilarity around the jounin rather than the man's ambiance being tainted with the earlier odd and dark intent.

Even Tsunade gave a snort at that entertaining jab. "Well, as I see that our sensei can still crack up a joke at our copy-nin's expense and neither is on the verge of committing any capital crimes, may it be safe for me to assume that you've gotten your elements back into control?"

She someday had to mention to Iruka that the pale skin color really didn't suit him.

"...They have acted, Hokage-sama," came the calm reply from Kakashi's side, and for a moment Tsunade was almost sure that she saw a look of hesitation pass the jounin's gray eye, not to mention noticing the sharp glare that was sent at the masked man's direction from the teacher's side. This was interesting.

The painted lips twisted into more official frown as the leading medic crossed her hands over her bosom. "Acted exactly on what level, Hatake?"

The darkened scowl that was thrown at Kakashi from the chuunin's direction made the darkly clothed jaw snap shut before even a syllable was mulled on the jounin's tongue. If the teacher wished to take the lead, he wasn't against it. After all, now it wasn't his ass that would be the first getting roasted on low heat if Tsunade decided to go berserk on them.

"We have gotten...reactions, Hokage-sama," continued the rich baritone of the chuunin, and as Kakashi risked a glance at the younger nin, he became fairly aware that it might not be even Tsunade who would snap first, and that it was more than relevant for him to count his steps to the nearest exit should the situation take a turn for worse. More precisely, the dark eyes were beyond discomfort and already reaching for the level of mayhem should their leader press any more on the matter.

As the things stood and her physical superiority allowed, she pressed. "If it's your element that 's causing problems, I think it's in everybody's best interest that you spill out whatever it is that's making your tongue to curl into itself, Iruka-sensei." The tone that left the woman's pursed lips matched the look in Iruka's eyes, and for a moment both Kakashi and the kohai who stood behind Tsunade's back were doubting if it really was ANBU and Root that were the ones to be feared after all.

Having its endless curiosity piqued, the silence scooted a bit closer to the four persons from its perch on the high fence wall, it allowing the morning noises tag along if they promised to behave, and waited patiently as Iruka took a slow sip of his tea and then turned to give a small look at Kakashi, the men undoubtedly debating over how to approach the subject. To Kakashi's surprise, bluntness became a new feature to add on his list about the tanned sensei when the dark-haired man turned once more to address their leader: "The elements have clashed when either of us has been under emotional stress, and as they have mixed, I have gotten physiological reactions, their nature having already been established in our previous discussion. Moreover Kakashi-san has electrocuted himself a couple of times, I think."

The gray eye gave small twitch on that particularly painful memory, and Kakashi couldn't hold his tongue on that matter. He still had his scores to be settled with the crafty chuunin, never mind that he had been impressed with the man's moves after he had cleared his spinning head and had had time to analyze what the hell it was that had happened to him in those agonizing minutes. "And whose fault was that, sensei?" As the scar-faced man turned his icy attention towards him, Kakashi figured that on a hot day it might not be so bad to have his coffee a bit more chilled.

"You're in no position to bark about what was only justifiably deserved, asshole," answered the chuunin's leveled voice while the darkly scowling eyes were leaving no room for redeeming his ego on the discussed issue.

"Alright, break it up you two." The annoyed bark made them both snap their mouths shut and turn from their thundering staring contest towards their leader, moreover at the exasperated sigh that left her lips as a slender hand rose to rub her temple. These two would be the death of her someday. As Iruka opened his mouth to speak, a sharp snap on her fingers made the man think twice. "Just shut it for now. Any more words from either of you and I would need to take a sedative in order not to mangle your asses into hospital." Then the perceptive eyes observed keenly the two nins before her. "What kind of situations are we talking about here?" She could almost taste the calm before storm as the men exchanged menacing glares. The second the sensei's full-lipped mouth opened, she knew she'd get more than an earful on the probed subject. Oh sweet joy.

"The ass groped me." The blonde eyebrows rose up at that.

"You slapped me first." The eye-roll was missed by both of her subordinates.

"You harassed me twice." A sliver of intrigued curiosity passed the Hokage's face.

"You maimed me with a shower." A poorly stifled snort was heard from behind her back.

"And I will do it again if you ever do those things to me ever again, pervert-" She couldn't help herself any longer.

"Considering the fact that the brat's lightning has obviously struck more than once in your pants and seeing the way you are going on about it I must say I'm surprised to discover that you haven't already worked through every hard surface there is in this house, Iruka-kun."

"HOKAGE-SAMA!"

"I'm joking, joking!" Tsunade laughed and waved her hand teasingly at the now furiously blushing chuunin in a way that reminded all of them about an other sannin who was currently out of the village. To her smugly gleeful note, even Kakashi seemed a bit stricken at her words. It seemed that this was getting more than just a peculiar mission in her betting books. The way the ANBU tensed in mid-snort behind her back when Kakashi cast the man a sharp, quick look was registered as a slightly odd sidenote in them, but she let the detail be for now.

They had more acute matters at hand to concentrate on.

"Let's change the outlines for this mission a bit." The two men saw the change in the look she was giving them, the earlier, playful gaze turning into more serious one as the woman clearly counted her next words and the possible consequences they may cause. The amber eyes gave a sharp look at Kakashi, who by the unwritten protocol was closest to being the mission leader in their two-man cell. "Beside still concentrating on improving yourselves as you have so far, I want you to focus more proactively on your elements as well. Not by abusing them -," on that she pointed a sharp fingernail on both of her subordinates and for a moment she thought she heard the air crack between them as they shared a challenging look, "- but doing the things the way you usually would and then reflecting and repeating immediately the situation where your elemental bases act strangely or cause something to happen. We need to find out the trigger, because labeling it under 'emotional stress' gives us too wide range to work with. I'll look into your latest samples to see if there's anything to help us out, since your earliest ones didn't show anything out of ordinary as they were taken before this all happened, but right now you're the most valid walking samples to figure out how those rebellious elements function in different settings, especially during the sparring sessions." The sun tickled her cheeks, and Tsunade turned her face towards the sunny yard that was expanding in front of the terrace, the now dried, muddy lines still crossing it as a reminder of a fierce match once fought on that particular soil. "The phenomenon is interesting to me as a shinobi as well, since none of us seem to have experienced anything alike before. Understanding our elements could give more valuable clues for polishing up the current training curriculum, but problems were to arise if they activate only under certain circumstances. Catch my drift, sensei?" The piercing look was turned at her most trustworthy chuunin who seemed to have already caught on her thinking if the firm line forming on the man's mouth was anything to go by.

A mere nod was all the confirmation she needed even before Iruka continued her assumption. "That sounds like a potential dilemma, Tsunade-sama. It doesn't benefit anyone to get emotional in a battle situation, so if losing the calm mind is the key to unleash the elements, they could become dangerous not only for the target but the users themselves." Hearing a pensive hum from Kakashi's side made the chuunin give a silent yet exasperated sigh. What now?

"True, sensei, but so does any jutsu work as a double-edged sword in every combat where they are used," stated the deep voice of the older nin, and Iruka leveled the silver-haired man with a flat look, him knowing very well that the slightly offensive thought that rang in his mind didn't go unnoticed by the other man if the tiny twitch of the gray eye over the dark mask was giving any hints on that.

Well thank you, Sharingan-no-Obvious.

His mouth, to their surprise, decided to go for diplomacy. "Of course, Kakashi-san, but the question between an element and a jutsu is not about its effectiveness but in the problem of control," Iruka argued, and took a sip of his tea to discard the oddly stirring excitement that the debate was bringing up within him. The hesitant sense of ease he felt between him and the older man was something he had already thought to have been lost after the incidents they've had encountered so far, and judging from the look the silver-haired nin gave him, he hadn't been the only one struggling with the particular thought.

"Maa, you did seem able to control your attack quite well yesterday, sensei," the pale-skinned man mused with a more teasing voice.

The unfair blow made Iruka narrow his gaze at the verbal lashing he was now facing, his temper flaring lightly under the restraints of his iron will. "You only saw one side of it, Kakashi-san, and I'm fairly confident in assuming that to be the case with you as well." All other three residents could sense the change that took over Iruka as he slipped into his teaching mode. "An element is not something one learns by hand signs but something that is already coded within a shinobi's system. It's designed to enhance both skills and combat performance, and therefore I would think twice to use something that I have grown with rather than gotten trained into, since it can be easily connected to some of my other personal traits such as emotions. It could be a gamble with too much at stake, since there's no saying that it wouldn't turn against its user at some point if the goals and the fundamental being of the shinobi conflicts. We control the jutsu, at least in theory, but the element controls the body that controls the jutsu. There can be no counter-control in this case, in other words, fire can't be done if the element is earth. If the element isn't cooperative and one doesn't know how to use it to the best advantage, the shinobi is at loss and we all know the final result when that happens."

The silence that fell over the four occupants on the terrace was long and spoke volumes when the three shinobis pondered on what the chuunin had said, both the ANBU and the Hokage keeping their eyes on the pensive academy teacher.

Kakashi, on the other hand, was keeping his eye on an other shinobi.

"...That's settled, then." As all three men turned their attention at her, Tsunade gulped down the rest of her already cold tea and stood up. Then the medic turned to nod at the ANBU who was already waiting for her orders. "Take their samples and leave the new sample box on the counter. Deliver them to Shizune at the Hokage Tower and say that I'll accompany her shortly." With a curt nod, the ANBU left to the kitchen and then Tsunade gave a smile at the two men who had already stood up to hear her final instructions for their mission. "You really have a resourceful mission partner, brat." She couldn't help but smile at the slightly awkward look that crossed Iruka's face, moreover when Kakashi nodded and gave the man a brightly smiling look which made the other look away with a sliver of red hue on the scarred features. "Continue where you were left off and report again should anything out of the ordinary happen. This research starts to get more twists than was planned, but if all goes well then I say that I'm very happy that you decided to go with my request. In the meantime, don't kill each other while at it." A ring of laughter could be heard in her last words before her hands went through the signs for the needed jutsu. "And brat, please take a shower. You could be smelled two miles away."

And with that, the chuunin and jounin were left behind to watch the dissolving smoke from her elegant disappearance.

"...It's the clothes."

The bright laughter of one shinobi academy instructor rang along the barriers into the clear sky.

"...Now, now, there's no need to use so crude words...I call it making the game more interesting. There's nothing to worry if you play nicely along, sensei."

The lean body bristled visibly on the words, and Iruka took quiet, slow and deadly precise steps towards his opponent, the narrow hips swaying on his way while the fire turned up the heat in the deep brown eyes as they followed the pale hands that played with their prized prey. "Oh, I would worry if I were you, since if that box gets even a speck of dust on it I'm going to rip you several new ones, Kakashi-san."

The slender, silvery eyebrow was cocked at that choice of words. "So inventive threats yet so little actual action. Does that apply in your battles only or is that one of the reasons as to why your crotch is so tense?"

The chime of a silver bell wasn't quick enough to keep up with the chuunin's moves, and as he dashed madly down the corridor with the now extremely peeved sensei's tea collection in a firm grip under his arm, ran through their bedroom into their training room and just narrowly avoided being tackled to the ground by the teacher who had rounded to the other side of the house and lunged at him through the terrace doors, Kakashi felt a wide grin fix itself on his masked lips.

The bright spark of joy that could be spotted in the otherwise menacingly glaring dark eyes was something he could have watched longer if the imminent danger of losing his family jewels hadn't been so hot on his heels.

"Maa, sensei, who would have thought that those pillars weren't actually so easy to pinpoint?"

The laughter was clear in the deep voice of the silver-haired male that rang over the sounds coming from their kitchen, and on that note Iruka felt the small, insistent tug of smile already crawl on his lips as he enjoyed the sunlight on his skin. "Who knows. You should ask the same idiot who hit his head on one of them," Iruka chuckled and gave the pillar in question a quick once-over, especially the spot that had suddenly lost some of its paint. Then again, the hint of red did match well with the silver hair. As long as it wasn't the copy-nin's own blood, that is.

"That was cruel, Iruka-sensei. I thought teachers were to be supportive when their students trip and stumble." From the way the jounin took his defeat (and the probable headache), he could have doubted that the man had let him win their latest game of tag on purpose.

"Spare me, you were a jounin instructor and based on what I heard from Naruto I have more reasons to make my students to learn the harsh reality before unleashing them on your elite neck."

"It's always a pleasure to give my humble contribution to your curriculum, Iruka-sensei." The deep, teasingly rumbling bass came closer as the jounin set his foot on the terrace with their lunch on the wooden tray held by the strong hands.

"Always thinking so highly of yourself, aren't you. Are you sure you hit your head properly enough or should we give another go with it?" With a sunny grin plastered on his face on the loud laughter he heard from the masked assassin, Iruka gave the approaching man a suspecting, if a bit excited, glance. "What did you brew for me this time?"

Kakashi gave a nonchalant shrug. "I found this odd, roasted type. Smoky, if I have to hazard a guess." Although the lightning user couldn't help but feel just slightly annoyed, since he could very well distinct the roasts of his coffees and the levels of bitterness in his cup, but the sheer variety of scents and visual differences between the tanned nuisance's teas were giving him a bigger challenge than he liked to admit. Even on his third time rummaging through the tea addict's vast collection he had still been surprised by the amount the man had hogged up in his wooden tea box that was put back into its rightful place after his narrow escape from death. He had never thought to be literally saved by the bell during his years as an active shinobi. Not to mention being ambushed by a meddling pillar, but that was merely a fluke on the architectonic structure's side. As he spotted the warm smile that splayed itself on the scarred man's features, the mental complaints about a bunch of dry leaves and hard, wooden beams were quickly discarded.

The dark-haired chuunin's throat made a nonsensical noise as he eyed the steaming tea. "Sounds like hojicha. Which pouch?"

Against his reputation, Kakashi had to take second to remember. "White one with a wooden clip." Probably.

A low, richly vibrating hum left the tan body, and as he sat next to the man, Kakashi observed the way the meticulous tea drinker sniffed long and deeply his tea after receiving it from the older man, the tan man letting out a sigh that did interesting things to Kakashi's gut. And they say that he's the perverted one. "Hojicha it is. Interesting choice, must say. How long did you steep it?"

This part was always tricky in Kakashi's opinion. Why wasn't there just one standard system for the teacher's teas? "Four minutes."

To the jounin's surprise, Iruka cast him a playful look over his cup, the brightly glinting eyes accompanied with a coy grin, and the rich baritone turned a bit smoother and more sensual as the man's skilled tongue rolled the words from the witty mouth before Kakashi's mind was actually registering what the man was saying: "You know how to make my tea. A genius, undoubtedly."

However, the pale elite wasn't the only one who caught onto the sudden turn in the discussion. The moment the words were out of his mouth, Iruka could already feel his blood rush a bit faster in his veins as he recognized the same foreign gleam he had so many times witnessed to pass the gray eye, and the warm, aromatic beverage made a wave of warmth spread into his whole body as he thickly swallowed his first sip. Suddenly something cold and hard touched his thigh, and being startled from his restless thoughts enough to almost spill his tea, he jerked himself a bit backwards while his wide eyes searched out the source of the sudden interference.

An innocent-looking bottle of massage oil was slowly lifted better in sight.

Kakashi gave the baffled man a smiling pair of eyes before gingerly placing the bottle between him and the positively stunned teacher. The dark brown eyes stayed on the bottle for a moment that felt like a small eternity before they were narrowed and lifted to send quite a sharpened look at his still smiling mismatched ones. He should have seen it coming, really.

"You sneaky bastard." Well, the man could have used more offending definitions, so Kakashi chose not to retort at that verbal slap. Much.

"Now, now. It wouldn't be a favor if the time and the place suited you, neh, sensei?"

The voice of the masked nin was a bit too smug for Iruka's liking. "And what's so special about this particular time of day, Kakashi-san?" The unimpressed tone was a clear clue to the jounin that the chuunin didn't bite the bait without the elite forcing it down the tan man's throat. Iruka's neck prickled as the hidden lips pulled in what clearly was a wide smirk stretching the dark cloth as the one-eyed wonder leaned casually back on his hands.

As it was, the man's lazy drawl was as taunting as he had practiced it. "As our mutual friend in green would put it, one should indulge themselves in the most straining exercises in the times when the shinobi feels most youthful and high-spirited."

A laconic, if a bit entertained eyebrow was cocked at the smirking jounin. "It's cheap to use Gai-san on an unarmed man, Kakashi-san. Besides, I think you just made me lose my appetite with that." The deeply rumbling bark of laughter rang nicely to his ears, and Iruka couldn't help his own smirk from widening despite the nauseating tremor of dread that started to settle into his gut as his eyes once more passed over the tiny glass vessel that held its ground with an air of defiance circling it.

While being lost in his thoughts, he didn't notice the gray eye's intense gaze on him.

A bowl slipped back into the hot water and Iruka cursed as the number of damp spots increased on his pants. While taking a calming breath, the sensei snatched the bowl back from the depths of the sink, spilled even more water on himself in the process, gave the infuriating piece of pottery a scalding hot rinse and shoved it into the cupboard with the rest of the annoying bunch. As the water drained down the sewer, Iruka rubbed his face tiredly, the timid tension taking its toll on him even though it was only early afternoon.

Damn that jounin.

The bastard in question had went to clean his face in the bathroom after having spewed some of his coffee inside his mask (he could only blame himself on that, since he should have seen the opening he had given to Iruka with that one joke about Raikage and washcloths) and left Iruka to handle the dirty dishes after they had finished the lunch, which he didn't mind. What he did mind was the torture that awaited him after the dishes were done. With that the brown eyes turned to stare with growing frustration at the imprisoned oily substance that had the nerve to stare right back at him from its glass cage. Despite using all of the time that was mercifully given to him for forming a plan to escape, to his dismay Iruka had come up with nothing, if one didn't count the temptation to tie up and knock the bastard out cold until the end of their mission.

"I think the bottle is half full in this case, sensei," purred the deep voice suddenly very close to his ear, and Iruka had to use all of his training in order to suppress his honed instincts that decided to forget the reasoning and go straight for the killing.

To make up to his ego for that magnificent yet sadly dissatisfying performance of self-control, he spun around and aimed his fiery temper at the unnerving bastard in order to replace the lacking (although so, so tempting) blows at the arrogant idiot's masked face. "Do not sneak up on other shinobi, asshole!" Although the second his eyes truly took in what exactly he was facing, it was something completely else than his temper that flared inside him.

Broad, bare chest greeted him from just two feet away, and to his further discomfort, Iruka could feel the heat of the body he had almost touched as he had turned around, and as he calculated the distance between his suddenly very tightly curled fists and the muscular, smooth flesh that teased him from close range, the teacher had to resist the skyrocketed urge to reach out and feel the skin under his fingertips. The rosy nipple that could be seen just barely in the periphery of his vision as he concentrated extremely hard on looking at the gray eye wasn't helping the matters on any level. Thankfully, despite the rapidly pooling drool that was making it hard to move his tongue, his mouth was the first to recover. "What the hell are you up to now?"

The smile in the mismatched eyes was setting a new record on evil smugness, and Iruka had to swallow a couple of times extra when the jounin took a step closer to him, that way cornering one distressed chuunin quite effectively against the kitchen counter. "Well, isn't this usually the standard requirement for it?"

"...For what?" While his brain was still recovering from falling a victim to a prompt short-circuiting, the chuunin wasn't sure if he wanted to hear the answer, a particular part of him being highly aware by now that if the half-naked jounin as much as even coughed the word 'ass', the wooden counter would in a beat have more than just kitchen appliances on it. A trickle of sweat begun its way down his temple, and Iruka could feel its ticklish path on his skin as it crossed the cheek, the jaw, curved along the strong bone and then slipped downwards on his throat and caressed his collarbones before disappearing under his black top. The counter pressed heavily against the small of his back, and Iruka forced his hands to take a hold on the edge of the wooden board to stop his fingers from digging bleeding holes into his palms. He really needed his whole system functional to pull through the current situation, which was proving to be quite a challenge with his neck muscles that were providing a plethora of arguments for just briefly dipping...his..gaze..lower-

The smooth, low voice made a couple of more drops of sweat travel down his skin as the jounin leveled the teacher with a conniving look. "I did say that you owe me a massage, didn't I, sensei?" The jounin stepped a bit back and lifted his arms more in the air on his sides to show his upper torso more properly, much to the delight of the unfortunate chuunin's libido that was currently planning a coup d'état in Iruka's pants with the rest of his dark desires. "I also know that you want solid arguments on the things that are asked from you. So here you have it, the request laid out plain and honest, just the way you prefer it."

Oh, he preferred a lot of things right then.

While Iruka carefully schooled the mask of a strict professional back on his face and fought against the threatening blush that pinched his cheeks with the help of the passing thought on the things he could do with a willing jounin if things ever were to progress that way, he grudgingly gave the mass of strong muscles in front of him a brief glance. Although, when he finally understood what the other had meant, his head was promptly picked up from the gutter and the scorching burn that had started to increase his body heat dissolved into nothing as it was forced to make way to the deep concern that took over his once again cleared consciousness. The sight of three large bruises that adorned the muscular body made the pang of guilt give his libido a cruel hit on the head while his sense of duty effectively disbanded the starting party from his boxers. Based on the sheer size of the damaged areas, he could easily imagine the amount of pain being equal with the visual aspect. Had he caused that last night?

"I would really appreciate the massage now, sensei. Plus it's getting a bit chilly here." When hearing the quietly spoken words, Iruka lifted his eyes from the maimed skin and saw Kakashi give him a sheepish smile beneath his mask and the jounin scratching his neck in an awkward manner. Then again, if he heard it right, the voice of the masked man had a more serious layer in it, and as the smiling, gray eye opened to give him a look, the skillfully concealed pain became visible to him for the first time.

The following silence was long, thick and awkward.

Then, without giving any more thoughts on the matter, Iruka reached for the small glass bottle beside him on the counter and stepped closer to the masked, bruised jounin. With a firm yet gentle hand, the chuunin took hold on the pale shoulder and slowly turned the unresisting ex-ANBU around. His eyes scanned over the revealed damage done to the older man's back, every counted bruise and scratch making the lump in his throat grow bigger and sharper on each breath he forced down his lungs when he realized that what he was seeing was actually just a fragment of the whole picture, since he was sure he had hit the man's whole body with his creative punishment method.

That plan had backfired more than he had gambled for.

With that thought giving him the needed push to see beyond their troublesome tongue-lashing on the subject, Iruka gave the man's shoulder a light squeeze with his hand, and as the jounin took the subtle hint, the pair made their way to the bedroom with the uneasy silence following their each step. Then, as they stepped into the modestly furnished space, Kakashi turned around and gave Iruka a wondering look. "Where should I sit?"

The chuunin looked around for the suitable spot. Then he reached and tucked off the blanket from his futon and folded it on the floor in a neat square big enough for both of them. "Here. This should do." Obediently, Kakashi sat on the pointed fabric and as the jounin turned his broad, well sculpted back to Iruka, the chuunin felt his hold on the oil bottle tighten on the disarming sign of trust that one of their village's best assassins was giving him. For Hatake Kakashi to turn his naked back to a trained shinobi who just the other day had made him howl in pain, that decision wasn't just a tiny footnote to be quickly looked over. Calmly, Iruka counted the big bruises on the other's back once more in order to force the surfacing, completely irrelevant thoughts away from his head. Seeing naked skin on his blanket was stirring trouble within his systems, which was not the issue he wanted to concentrate on at that moment. The copy-nin was seemingly in pain, and it was his mission to ease it. He could do this. He had interacted with scantily dressed men before. Public baths did count.

As if sensing his battling thoughts, the pervert in question turned his gray eye to give a wink over the pale shoulder to the troubled man. "Maa, would it be more comfortable for you to do it on the futon?" The bastard didn't do anything to hide the lecherous tone that also sneaked into his gaze while he glanced at his futon as an emphasis for the teasing words.

The flat look that answered his innocent innuendo spoke volumes, and the sharp click of the oil bottle's lid did remind him of the temperamental nature of his current, seemingly a bit miffed masseur. "I'd be caught dead dressed in a pink uniform before going near any rumpled bed sheets with you, Kakashi-san."

"Yet another polite rejection." Kakashi chuckled to the snort that left the man who settled on his knees behind the copy-nin's back. "But you know, even the seven hells can freeze over with the right jutsu."

The slippery sounds of warmed-up oil ceased for a minute, and Kakashi could feel the other's piercing eyes on his neck. "That must be one hell of a jutsu then, copy-nin-san."

"You'd be surprised about the things one can learn when being sent on very bizarre missions," and with that last light note, Kakashi focused to look forward, the gray eye settling to watch their training room that bathed in the bright sunlight. Surprisingly enough, the tan hands that have already been prepared for mangling him didn't appear on his body, and his skin gave a small tremor of anticipation on the lacking touch. Then, after a moment of considering the occurred oddity, a small, warm smile tugged at his hidden lips. "I know it's you behind my back, sensei. Please, do begin."

A small silence greeted his words. "You gossip, you die. Understood?"

Kakashi gave a surprised laugh at that one. Apparently he had badly misinterpreted the reason for the man's hesitation. Nevertheless, he felt the tense air having lifted off them, and not long after that the first, if a bit hesitant roll was given to his shoulders. Gradually, the tan hands became bolder and started to diligently work through the map of damaged areas on his back, making the jounin close his always perceptive eye on the nice feeling of someone tending his body. With his eyesight taken out of the game for a while, his other senses took over. He could smell the fresh scent of the oil, smell the hands that were working on a particularly nasty knot below his shoulder blade, felt the other's light breathing brushing against the skin areas that were a bit chilly with the first drops of oil being smeared over them and felt every flex of the deft fingers that traveled up and down his body, the perfectly controlled hands running over his now slippery skin while pressing, rubbing and rolling on the expertly targeted spots. The teacher had obviously given a massage before. The soothing tingle of chakra wasn't bad either.

All in all, the man of thousand jutsus was very pleased with his situation right now.

Iruka, on the other hand, was having troubles with his ethics. The glistening oil made the already distinct bruises stand out even more, and as he mapped the injuries both with his hands and eyes, to his unpleasant surprise he saw some very fresh, deep purple areas within the older, larger ones. Without knowing, he had obviously increased the man's agony during their first matches for the day. Why on earth the jounin didn't say anything to Tsunade? She could have easily healed the worst of them, as in now, as capable aid as the chakra-infused oil was, the man had to deal with a sore torso for a few days, possibly even a week. He had meant to make the man suffer from the lewd stunts he had pulled, and by all means, the bastard had deserved it in his opinion, but seeing the evidence of his rather violently performed retribution did make his conscience a bit bitchy. Sometimes it really was a pain to be raised as a good boy. Gradually, a tingle of different, pale green chakra took over his hands that worked on the pale skin.

"Don't waste your own chakra, sensei." the jounin's voice was suddenly very sharp and commanding, and Iruka, true to his nature, had none of it at that moment once he had his mind set to it. He was also more than willing to let the man know that.

"Save the idiotic bravery for something that actually counts, Kakashi-san," dropped the irritated reply from the chuunin's mouth, and to emphasize his point, the amount of healing chakra increased momentarily on a particularly nasty-looking spot. "It won't benefit our mission if one of us can't function properly, which is something that all cell leaders should understand."

"It also doesn't benefit us if you tire yourself now." The rumbling voice had taken a new note in it, and after a beat, Iruka recognized it as Kakashi's most formal one. The man was turning their ranks once again at him.

That prick. "I can regulate the use of my chakra, unlike someone I know."

Kakashi's eyebrow gave a twitch. Now that was a low punch. "As your superior-" A gasp of pain took Kakashi by surprise when the chuunin dug his knuckles into a surprisingly painful spot between his ribs. Hell that hurt!

"Wasn't it you who just yesterday dared to lecture me about merging myself into the team and to view the others as my own hands and legs? I don't know how you guys get trained to work on the field, but I could hardly imagine gaining any glory out of the battle if half of my body is crippled." Iruka's temper had somehow snuck up on him and he could already feel the hair on his neck stand on its ends as the familiar crackle of an oncoming verbal match struck a cord in him. Damn that man's ways of constantly rubbing him the wrong direction. The second he felt the muscles on the other man shift and roll, Iruka slammed his hands on the broad shoulders and focused all of his strength on those two specific areas in order to keep the other still. Then, after a deep breath, he gambled his game. "Kakashi-san." The inquiring sound that left the other man was clearly out for blood, but the chuunin couldn't care less at that point. "Please stop being a stubborn ass and let me heal you."

An intense wall of silence was dropped on them, and for a moment the dark-haired instructor was sure that he'd get thrown out of the room as the whole being of the copy-nin stiffened under his palms. It obviously wasn't everyday for the infamous Sharingan user that a lower rank forced medical care upon him. Then, slowly, the silver-haired nin's muscles slumped and turned pliant under his fingers, and the voice that carried over the pale shoulder was calm, but also holding something else that was hard for Iruka to decipher. "...I swear the boy is taking after you on more levels than it really is healthy, sensei."

On those words, Iruka couldn't stop the victorious grin from forming on his lips. "At least I asked nicely."

The amusement rang in the jounin's humming voice as the silver-haired head nodded. Iruka should have anticipated the following question, though. "Does that mean that you'd feel up my chest as well?"

Swatting one's patients on the head wasn't the way professional medics were supposed to handle things if the ones being healed turned out to be difficult cases. The loud smack that came from an oiled hand meeting with a mane of silver hair was a stinging reminder for Kakashi that Iruka wasn't tied to the medic's ethics, and apparently the ethical instructions for the Ninja Academy teachers had all the physical punishments highlighted in neon colors. "An active jounin should understand by now that healing the injuries does not mean increasing their amount, Kakashi-san."

Speaking of which. "Maa. You seem to know quite a lot about things concerning our profession, Iruka-sensei."

A dry snort was given at that. "It's a standard requirement to know quite a lot of things if one is a teacher in an academy, you know." Iruka wiped his forehead clear from sweat, since his body hadn't used that much of chakra in a long time and it began to show, and after deeming the pale back being in better condition than it had been as the intensity of the marks was reduced to half, the green-hued chakra vanished from covering his palms and all that was left was the pale blue glow of the massage oil. Now, back to the matters at hand.

"I know that noticing the rank and position rarely tells much about the person possessing them," Kakashi said and gave the skilled hands more space to work on his right shoulder by turning his head a bit. Ah, that was a sore spot there. "Hearing them discussing on interesting matters is what counts usually. After all, all teams are formed by a good reason, at least in theory, so it's only natural that team members wish to know something more detailed about their comrades than just the name and face. Even the ones that wear a mask over their faces." The other man's attention was clearly snatched back to the conversation on that sentence, and as the massaging hands slowed for a moment on the jounin's spine, it was all Kakashi needed to keep going. "It's also rare to meet so practice-oriented teacher in the times of peace."

Iruka wasn't sure if he liked where the discussion was heading, and gave the man's lower back a firm squeeze, although his eyes were trained on the pale nape of the muscular neck in front of him. "I wouldn't say that, Kakashi-san. Even though the peaceful era has lasted longer than any of us may have anticipated, we're still shinobi. Our ranks will still kill and get killed on the field. Isn't that what our training aims for?"

"You answered the question yourself already, sensei." Kakashi took a better position on the floor before turning back on track. "It's the way you both study and work, basically. If I try to explain you something, the mere theory isn't adequate enough to provide you with the feel and sense of the taught move. On the other hand, if I show it to you, or better yet, beat you with it -," he wasn't sure if that was a light punch or just a stronger push given to his upper back, but nevertheless, it made him chuckle, "- you've covered it by the third match." Then, a more serious tone took over his musings. "Besides, none of the things the trouble trio actually had learned from you were from the beloved lectures you frequently bestow upon your higher-ups as well...well, save for Sakura on some parts." Even though the following thoughtful silence was interesting in itself, Kakashi was particularly intrigued by the hesitant changes of pressure happening on Iruka's right hand fingers. As no answer nor retort came, Kakashi went forward. "Same for this mission-"

"Turn around, Kakashi-san." The hands had disappeared from his back, and Kakashi turned to look over his shoulder at the surprisingly subdued sensei. The chuunin answered his eye with the dark pair of his own and then rolled them in a full circle before crossing the well-built arms on the equally nicely sculpted, albeit clothed, chest. "You wanted me to heal your other side as well, am I correct?"

Now it was his turn to hesitate. There was an odd layer in the teacher's words. "Ah. Well. If it isn't too much to ask."

"Keep stalling and soon it will be," came the calm retort. Quickly, the jounin turned around on the spot and Iruka had to bite his tongue to keep it from commenting on the rather tasty piece of a man he was now watching as his eyes swept over the bunching and smoothing muscles when the other man sat back down and settled into a comfy posture. Then, after a long, deep breath to calm his muscles from trembling, Iruka reached his hands towards the jounin and a green glow took over his palms once more as he focused his gaze on one very mean-looking bruise. Then, he placed the bets. "You were saying something about this mission?"

"Why are you keeping your hands so far away, sensei?"

That change of subject did nothing to lower his stress levels and he gave the infuriating man a patient glare he usually received only for Konohamaru and his gang. "We didn't agree on me giving a massage to your chest, just the healing. That's all I'll do." Unless he was asked nicely...he really should focus on the bruises now.

As tempting as continuing their earlier dialogue was, Kakashi really couldn't disregard the opening he was given. "Maa, but isn't it said that it's exactly the loving touch that heals the best?"

The ex-ANBU was fairly sure that the chuunin's shoulders tensed for other reasons as well than just holding in a mean punch. "Firstly, that only applies between people who are actually acquainted with the mentioned emotion, which I hardly believe for either of us, and secondly, lean one more inch closer than you already have and you'll be missing a nipple, bastard." The low voice was strict and meant every word, and Kakashi was sure it applied even on the ones hidden between the lines.

A silvery eyebrow rose a bit at the undoubtedly rather painful idea. "Well that wouldn't be nice."

The look in the dark brown eyes was hard and definite. "No, I imagine it wouldn't." Despite of the healing process requiring most of his concentration, an odd shift in the air between them made him look up at the superior's face, and when Iruka saw the masked smirk it was already too late to react.

Out of clear blue, he found pale hands slamming around both his neck and left upper arm and his whole body abruptly changing its angle as he was roughly manhandled to the ground on his back with his arms pushed to the floor above his head before a very familiar weight settled on his pinned body. As he quickly understood the proximity of the other man's certain body parts when compared to the location of his own and then registered how close to his face the masked nose actually was, the sight of the darkened, gray eye sending fits of tremors running over his body, he was more than temped to find out the deity that was on guard duty and beat the shit out of its ethereal being. The deep, rumbling voice sent heated shivers dancing on his skin and the gust of air coming from the masked mouth made him smell the dark roast and sliver of sweet melon in the jounin's breath, his mind turning hazy on the given stimuli so fast that he almost thought he had misheard the words that were murmured near his lips: "Then you shouldn't have let me into your close range, sensei."

...Come again?

The dark, wide and stunned eyes fixed themselves to look back at the intense gray, and, within seconds, Iruka realized there to be no trace of the familiar yet undefined glint that had usually flashed in the jounin's sharp eye in moments like this.

In other words, the prick knew exactly what he was doing.

On that rather illuminating realization, Iruka's skyrocketing temper was given its eagerly awaited permission to shake off the shackles of control.

A sharp slap echoed through the air and Kakashi barely managed to catch his fall to his side while a sting of burning pain took over his masked jaw and cheek. Not only that, but he was pretty sure they didn't have any buckets of ice cold water conveniently located in the bedroom. The voice of the teacher sounded distant and strangely detached as his still ringing ears picked up only the monotonous sounds of the water drops hitting the floor. What the man had said before he picked himself up, gave the elite one last furious look and then stalked to the kitchen, Kakashi couldn't say.

A drink.

He needed something to drink.

Actually, what he really needed was one of his katanas to cut one asshole in half and save the others from the trouble.

The shaking hands worked vigorously over the pouch of black tea, and an aggravated curse was hissed between the gritted teeth as some of the dry leaves missed the sieve and scattered over the kitchen counter. The water boiler didn't even manage to give out the click before it was taken and the hot water was dumped into the awaiting cup, while Iruka, somewhere in the back of his fiercely spinning head, knew that the machine had done nothing against him and therefore it was a bit rude to slam it hard on the table surface after using it. But, as the situation was, he didn't give a fuck at the idea of propriety as he was itching for more than just abusing some non-living objects.

A trap.

A mere fucking trap.

And he had walked right into it.

The sieve was aggressively pulled out of the water and the moment his nose finally picked up the scent of what he had steeped, the metal net found itself suddenly flung against the nearest wall, the wet leaves exploding in a heap of wet clumps against it and then sliding down the painted surface. The wailing clink of metal hitting the wooden floor was only a mere distant echo in Iruka's ears while the thrumming roar of his boiling blood took most of his attention.

"Then you shouldn't have let me into your close range, sensei."

A fierce fist made the cupboard door splinter.

That fucker had contaminated his pu'erh.

The freshly brewed tea was unceremoniously throwed down the sink and an aggravated growl rose from the man's throat as his whole being trembled in rage at the sight of wasted tea. That conniving jerk in a mask would pay. As steeping yet another cup was currently out of question, if the massacre by the wall was any indication, Iruka quickly filled the cup with cold water, for his need to drink and hydrate his body was pressing on his consciousness with every passing second. The attack he had hit the jounin with had surprised him as much as the recipient of his wrath, but currently he was more concerned about the black edges that crept closer to his vision the longer he delayed the replenishing of his element.

Without giving any toasts to the surrounding silence, he took a greedy swig from the cup.

As the cold liquid touched his lips and the taken gulp flowed down his throat, an odd wave of shivers ran down his figure and made him place the other hand on the counter. The dark eyes narrowed at the sensation, and after a moment of consideration the tan man took a second, deliberately slower sip. As the water brushed past his lips, not a second was wasted before a new, even stronger wave of tremors raked down his whole body, all the way from his head to toes, and it took all of Iruka's willpower not to spill the taken mouthful out the same way it had went in. Suddenly his body felt like being caught on fire and his eyesight disappeared, leaving him with only a chaos of blue shadows surrounding him. His gut twisted and turned in a fit of what felt like a very nasty temper tantrum and his lungs felt like they were crushed under a weight that curled around his internal organs like a snake. As he blindly steadied himself against the counter and fought to stay standing on way too wobbly legs, Iruka dazedly realized his breath was coming in shallow pants, making it more difficult to calm himself down without the possibility to take a deep breath, and with growing nausea he realized there to be only one action he should take in order to survive the asphyxiation that had taken over his already spasming body.

They had to summon-

"..ei? Sensei?"

He wasn't sure if those were his own words he was hearing. His vision reeled violently and was suddenly wrapped tightly in a bright blue cocoon that intensified with each passing heave his lungs barely managed to pull through his constricting throat. Numbly, as he turned to look in the direction of the heard noise and felt his hand to let go of the counter, his eyes stared unseeing at the electric blue, blurry figure who moved towards him. When he understood that he could no longer feel his legs, he more felt than heard his mouth move to form the last coherent sentence he was somehow sure that the strange shadow understood.

A clear, simple request, really.

"...Catch me."

The tea cup shattered as it fell to the hard floor from his limp hand, and as his mind slipped into the dark void that enclosed him inside its soothing silence, Iruka smiled ruefully as the last, weak thoughts that made all of his barriers shatter around him, like the frail porcelain that gave out its last, sharp cry as it cracked and lost its particles' balance in its impact with the unyielding wooden boards, disappeared into nothingness.

Nothing important, apparently.

Chapter Text

The careful fingers ran over the cold, sweaty skin, their soothing motion repetitive and gentle. The silence was their only company in the scarcely decorated room as the owner of the caressing fingers sensed the other two presences sitting near both her and the one she held, one on each side, to be precise, but none of them gave each other any attention. Namely because they all shared one common person to look over, and the faintly glowing fingertips trembled ever so finely as they crossed a weak pulse point beneath the strong tendons on the dark-skinned throat.

As Tsunade removed her hands from Iruka's body, she knew the other two had their undivided attention drawn to her. Silently, she picked herself up from the floor and the tense ambiance seemed to only make her heels click with a louder echo as she walked to the opened double doors and cast a look to the outside world. The setting evening light that greeted her did make it more difficult to keep the calmness in her voice. "Shizune."

"...Tsunade-sama?" Apparently she wasn't the only one struggling with words.

"Look after him for a moment. I need to discuss with the brat for a bit." She didn't need the affirming words to know that her aide was already focusing on something more important than her conversations with the copy-nin who had silently appeared by her side. With a heavy sigh, the village's leading medic went through the eerily silent training room, stepped down the terrace's stairs and let her legs carry her over the large yard which was still basking in the last rays of warm sunlight.

She didn't need to hear the jounin in order to know that he had joined her.

"He's stable now, but I wouldn't let it past it that something else weren't to happen yet." Accompanied with the calm words, the amber eyes slowly turned to give an unreadable look at the lone gray that she had felt on her for a while already. "All we can do is wait for now."

The nod she received was small, silent and subtle, and yet it screamed at her. "Understood, Tsunade-sama."

"Do you really?"

Kakashi gave a surprised blink at the suddenly harsh voice coming from his leader. Apparently he had missed something vital to make Tsunade glare at him like she did, the amber eyes gleaming with hard light in them, and the grimly frowning, painted lips glowing faintly as the rays of light traveled over the woman's face.

Tsunade felt her ill temper subside at the sight of the calm, confused man, knowing that he wasn't aware of the things they had to pull in order to keep the sensei on their side of the living world, as they had kicked the jounin out of the kitchen when they had attended the violently spasming chuunin who was literally spilling his guts out on the kitchen floor. It took two of her ANBU to keep the man out as she knew she couldn't spare even a glance to anyone else than Iruka whose skin had already started to lose some of its color. As the facts were, despite feeling unwilling to do so, she was obliged to fill in the jounin now, since she couldn't afford losing neither of the men for this mission. She had already been tempted to abort the research after she had read Shizune's full report on their first encounter with the troublesome side effects that, to her dismay, seem to only grow stronger as the mission drew forward. Discarding the surfacing thought of what if they had come even a minute later gave her the much needed voice back.

"It was worse this time, Kakashi." The flash of agitation in the gray eye made a somber smile spread on her lips before it vanished as she continued. "You did right when you summoned us straight away when you sensed that something was off, but it was still a closer call than I'd like it to be. Iruka's heart had already stopped for a beat, but luckily not longer than a second. What were you two doing when it happened?" In the haste of the moment, she had seen the remnants of the shattered tea cup and what seemed like wet tea leaves having been thrown to the wall close by, and unfortunately she wouldn't put it past the keenly bickering duo to have their elements going on a rampage right in the middle of their fighting. Why Kakashi was half-naked, wet and half-way oiled up when they had found him next to the fallen teacher, she left it for the man to decide if he wished to elaborate a bit on that, even though she had a few more or less entertaining ideas concerning the extraordinary sight they had stumbled upon when entering the house.

"Iruka-sensei gave me a massage and we had a small conversation about his learning skills." The voice of the silver-haired man was nonchalant, but the edge was there. That was all the clue she was apparently given on that matter.

"A conversation or a shouting match, brat?" A tiny humorless snort escaped Tsunade and she shook her head a bit at the slightly offended look on the masked face. "Sorry, sorry, do continue if there's more to it." Knowing her subordinate, the man was sure to detect the hidden order behind her lightly worded request.

The gray eye saw the demand, but was buying none of it. "Either way, the sensei also used some of his own chakra to heal some of my injuries," yet another interesting thing in Tsunade's notes, as she had taken notice on some of the marks on the pale body when she had sent the man into shower with her ANBU to guard him after they had managed to move the chuunin to the bedroom, "even though I strongly advised him not to, and then...well."

Kakashi knew he just gave her more than enough ammo to make him bed-ridden as well as something intense flashed in the amber eyes. " 'Well' ?"

"I may have pushed his button or two." Kakashi focused very hard to keep himself from wincing at the sharp glare that pierced his skull and kept his feet from twitching when the fair-haired woman turned to fully face him a few feet away. Even an inch in the wrong way and he'd be missing half of his head judging by the look on their Hokage's youthful face.

"What's going on, brat?"

He was sure he usually didn't have much problems in swallowing. "..I'm afraid I don't have enough information to form a coherent answer on that yet, Tsunade-sama."

"Enough information my superior sannin ass, I haven't seen you this timid ever since the disbanding of your genin team." The woman stepped a few steps closer, and Kakashi could sense the irritation roll off her in sharp waves. "Listen carefully, Hatake. Iruka is a fine shinobi and even finer specimen when it comes to the criteria of an eligible bachelor. You hurt him in any way, physical or mental, and I make sure that you'll not only get denounced back to a genin but will be sent on the longest, hardest and most boring D-rank there ever will be requested from our village after cutting off your genitals and making a door handle of your cock and earrings out of your testicles. Am I understood?"

Spending time with each other at work, Iruka and Tsunade were clearly exchanging the ideas of good threats for her shinobi, since amidst his slightly shocked surprise at the reprimanding warning, Kakashi was certain he could almost hear the rich baritone ring through the quietly spoken words. Therefore he knew very well that all he was expected to give was a positive answer if he still wished to keep all vital body parts intact. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

Tsunade gave the jounin one last long look before she brushed past him and walked a few steps back towards the house, but the high heels stopped to stand over a long line that crossed the ground. The voice that carried over her tense shoulder matched the stress Kakashi could easily spot on the woman, and the copy-nin knew better than to think that she had let her body language slip from the careful control she had it firmly wrapped in. "..We may have found an anomaly in one sample."

"An anomaly?" The ring of hesitant alertness was barely kept away from Kakashi's voice as he slowly processed the slip of information she had given him, undoubtedly to clue him in that there was something very much more discerning going on within them than their current petty problems of misbehaving arousals.

Tsunade gave a weak nod before the blonde head turned upwards, the Hokage seemingly considering how much of the raw data she could afford telling him. As the woman didn't answer his look, Kakashi knew that he'd be left with less than little information as an answer for the time being. "I need to return to the study, as we were just about to start working on it when the alarms went off. There might be a clue to this, but it's too soon to speculate on that yet. It could also be just contamination playing its tricks on us as far as we know." Then, the amber eyes turned to look at Shizune who had appeared on the terrace, the calm look on the younger woman's face fooling neither of them about the seriousness of the situation. Nevertheless, it was their cue to continue forward. "Can I trust you with this, Hatake?"

The quiet murmur was meant for both him and her, and Kakashi knew the answer even before giving it any other thoughts. He was Hatake Kakashi, after all, and he never failed a mission. So, with the air so familiar to others around him, he acted as he was expected and gave his leader a smile with his eyes, even though he knew fully well that she didn't see it. It was the one kind of smile that was reserved only for them two whenever the situation was dire enough for her to doubt him.

In that moment, he was no longer just a man with a dilemma. He was a shinobi with a hopefully good answer.

"As always, Hokage-sama."

The gray clouds had gathered over the village, and the equally gray eye peered over the worn, orange cover as the jounin's keen hearing picked up the first drops of water hitting the roof.

Any more rain and they'd need to reconsider their village's name.

As the irregular drips turned gradually into a monotonous wall of hushed noise, Kakashi settled better against the terrace wall and picked up the plot from where he had left off. Or the porn without one, as it seemed to be the case with the next few pages. Soon enough, though, he felt the first tremors of cold taking hold on his bare arms.

..Meh. He'll adapt.

After a moment, the gray eye narrowed into an annoyed slit as a stronger pinch was given to his skin.

Like hell he would.

With a sharp snap, the book was closed and the man picked himself up from the chilly floorboards, the pale hand snatching the empty coffee mug in tow as the lean legs carried the jounin into the kitchen. A lone light was put on the counter and the mug was quickly rinsed before it was gently put on its spot next to his tins.

The coffee had had an odd taste in it. The gray eye narrowed to give a small glare at the traitorous grains and then it stopped to rest on the untouched wooden box that rested quite near to them. Sans the ever-present, well-used tea cup that had become a solid, unchanging factor on their kitchen counter.

Just like the tan hands treasuring it.

The gray eye shifted to look at the still damp spot on the lightly painted wall, the remnants of the steeped tea leaves still attached on the paint and slowly giving their surroundings some brownish-red color. The sieve laid still on the floor.

With the silence as his only companion, Kakashi went and swept gracefully down to pick up the slightly dented metal net, and the copy-nin gave the sieve an examining look. The teacher had been more than just merely angry with him. Carefully, the pale man took the sieve back to the light by the counter, and the nimble fingers dug out the rest of the soaked mush that was still inside it before giving it an almost apologizing rinse with warm water. Then the digits ran over the dented area and slowly straightened the damaged metal, the pouring rain being the only sound inside the light gray house for the time the jounin concentrated on the rather small detail in his mission partner's life that still managed to carry a whole world on its immaterial shoulders.

Kakashi could even claim the sieve being the chuunin's equivalent for his Icha Icha.

A small, sound chuckle was heard from his lips on that thought. At least the teacher's reactions were very similar to him when somebody found the nerve to mess with his porn. A fact which still gave his head a dull throb on the spot where he was undoubtedly adorning a hefty bump from the accidental and embarrassing encounter with their home's architectonic wonders.

Except that it wasn't the sieve that completed the complex man called Umino Iruka.

The narrow eye swept over a spot on the wooden floor, but it had already been cleaned from the white, frail shards, save for the one he had put into a safe place. He could only hope that the man would appreciate that tiny gesture.

If he survived the moment when those dark, fiery eyes would open again, that is.

A sound ping made his ears ring after being so well accustomed to the heavy silence around him, and it took him a moment to find out the source for the odd sound of which he was pretty sure it didn't mean that he had finally reached his breaking point. Then again, seeing that they had forgotten to take their laundry out of the machine did make him consider the small slaps of life when things were already teetering on the edge of crumbling into chaos. At least he would smell better when the chuunin regained his consciousness again. With a quiet hum, the jounin crouched down and opened the machine, took out a hefty bundle of dark clothes and set his way back to the terrace where they had created a few makeshift clotheslines for drying their clothes, the expertly tied ropes waiting in organized lines between the last two pillars on the terrace.

The sensei knew his knots, Kakashi gave him that. Where the tan man had found the rope for it was a question the lightning user really wasn't sure if he ever wished to get answered, though. A smirk tugged the hidden lips as the man considered the concealed layers of his enigmatic mission partner, and the jounin set the clean clothes on the wooden rail before calmly stretching each garment open and putting it hanging from the ropes with the clothes pins they had found from the bathroom the first time they had checked the cabinets. Two times he repeated the walk between the laundry machine and the terrace, and four times he had to wonder if they actually were so different after all or if all single male shinobi bought their underwear from the same outlet.

Although the black boxer briefs made of bamboo and silk did make the silvery eyebrows rise a bit.

No wonder Iruka's ass attracted all kinds of pests.

Briefly, the hands holding the criminalizing undergarment tightened their hold on the smooth fabric as Kakashi felt a stir in his gut at the memory of the last night.

He had been taken by surprise on just how agitated his muscles had become when he had walked in on the two men in the kitchen and had seen his former kohai corner the man he knew to be anything else than an easy target (it had taken a while for Genma to dare approach the standard office pens again after one particular flirting situation gone wrong, which was later labeled as Pen Penalty N.o 16, or, as the jounin population got to know it, 'Don't grab Umino's ass if you're running late with your report'), and for a reason he hadn't had time to analyze, his instincts had started to act more livid than usual around the brunette. The same had happened in the morning as well, as the sight of the armored arms around the young teacher had struck a strange nerve within his system. Sure, he had many rivals on different subjects, Gai covering most of them, but the feeling that had been ignited in his muscles didn't resemble any of his latest competitive situations. What it did resemble, though, was a matter he wasn't too keen to pick up from the naphthalene just yet.

The boxers went up on the rope next to his with a print of kunais on the waistband, and the jounin narrowed his look at the superficially innocent yet infinitely important pair of shinobi clothing.

What he yet didn't understand, though, was the number of masks that the seemingly openhearted chuunin actually carried over the scarred features. He had sensed the pair of keenly observing eyes that morning when he had performed his standard workout he usually did when he needed to ease up some extra energy, which in most people's opinions was as probable for him to have as for an Akimichi to declare they had no use for snacks.

All the things one did to maintain a certain reputation.

Nevertheless, the eyes he had felt on him had been bordering the lines of a predatory gaze, and he could still remember the odd feeling he had traveling on his skin as he had caught a quick glimpse of the intense gleam in the dark eyes that had been watching him behind the narrow gap, which was an opening he had intentionally left for the man to either take or to discard. What he might have done if the chuunin had opened the doors to their bedroom instead of going into the kitchen, he wasn't sure he himself had even figured out that time. He had worked on his instincts mostly at that moment, and he had known exactly what they would have voted for should he have found the guts to step to the double doors and pull them open to reveal the other man standing behind them.

One rarely shared a house with a more than sufficiently enticing individual and resisted the temptation for any other physical activities than just punching the other repeatedly in the face.

The jounin picked up a dark muscle shirt, the piece of clothing unfortunately empty without the tan body filling it, and as the pale digits ran over the well worn fabric, yet another wondering sentiment surfaced in the silver-haired geniuses head. After a moment of hesitating, ever so slowly, the dark mask was peeled down from the pale face and the shirt was lifted to the revealed nose.

The rain was glad that it had decided to pay the village yet another visit.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Hit.

Repeat.

The gray light flowed its own ways on the ex-ANBU's body as the assassin moved in the spacious, darkened room on silent feet. The body of an experienced nin wove its ways through the humid air as the hands and legs, made of flesh for a human, became steel-hard, deadly tools as they slashed and kicked their way in the middle of the imaginary battle.

They had only a couple of years before the potential hell would break loose.

An expertly pulled combination of an upper cut kick and four horizontal swings dislocated the ghost's shoulder from its neck tendons before severing the vital arteries.

He really should have known better.

A roundhouse kick completed with a crushing blow against the matted floor made sure the transparent opponent wouldn't rise from that fall.

"Can I trust you with this?"

Inhale.

Exhale.

Hit.

As always.

It was nutrition, granted, but it wouldn't have been so bad to actually taste it as well.

The jounin took a deep breath through his nose while the jaws chomped on a freshly made sandwich, the lean body being slumped against the counter as the gray eye observed the fallen dark night through the kitchen door. A small sip was taken on the steaming drink, and for a moment the revealed lips twisted into a displeased pout.

The coffee was bland.

The fish was bland.

His mood was getting sick of things being bland.

A tired, if a bit irritated, sigh left the frowning lips and the sandwich was tucked neatly in a small napkin before it was put into the fridge next to the other ingredients of their healthy diet that was given a dark glare over the mask's edge.

The copy-nin could have killed for a decent cup of sake right now. At least then his night wouldn't have tasted and felt so unnervingly bland and boring. It could have also eased his nerves a bit, and the gray eye was turned to look at the slightly opened bedroom door. Then, the jounin closed the uncharacteristically healthily equipped fridge of theirs (since he was fairly sure that the otherwise annoyingly healthy-looking, nicely tanned nuisance wasn't all thumbs up for their current food arrangement either. He had seen him by the Ichiraku with Naruto, after all), and ambled his slouched way to the threshold of the room that held in his currently fallen team member. It took a while for his eye to adjust in the surprisingly thick darkness that had taken over the room, save for the dim glow that came from the kitchen light behind him, but as he slowly made out the form of the other male, a sense of concern nudged his side as he took in the man's present demeanor.

The dark, now almost black hair was spread over the white pillow and the usually vivid and expressive eyes were closed, not to mention the ever loud mouth being shut and silenced for once. The sight Kakashi saw could have been described peaceful, calming even, but the almost nonexistent rise and fall of the muscular chest was enough to make the ones with more intel on the situation break into cold sweat.

Worse than before, huh.

But what had been the trigger?

As many times as he had replayed the situation that had led to the collapsing of the chuunin, Kakashi couldn't help but think that he was still missing the most meaningful pieces to provide him with the accurate conclusion. He hadn't used his element on the other man, that much he knew...or at least hoped. He had only tested out a theory that had been nagging in his mind ever since he had prevented the kohai from becoming an endangered species, but save for the sudden water attack he had been struck with by the obviously enraged teacher, there was nothing else to grasp on. And then the man went down without asking for a permission first. Ironically, even the strict teacher could apparently have a bad sense of timing in some occasions.

The low groan that carried through the room was all he needed to discard the swirling thoughts and for kicking his body on the move.

Since that groan didn't come from him.

Quickly, the jounin strode across the room and knelt down next to the resting man, and for a passing moment, as he scanned over the sleeping features, Kakashi began to doubt that his timid mind had made him mistake something else for the richly rumbling baritone as the chuunin's features stayed immobile as a clay mask. Then he saw it.

The lively eyes were moving beneath the eyelids.

Cautiously, the masked face lowered itself over the comatose chuunin. "..Sensei..? Iruka-sensei..?"

Nothing at first. Then...a small gruff.

Nobody said that the progress should always involve words. They were overrated anyway. Gently, Kakashi lifted his hand and gave the bare shoulder a tiny nudge. For some reason his fingertips began to tingle as they pressed against the bit warmed-up skin, but that could have been the last sparks of Tsunade's chakra based on the unfamiliarity of it. He had been introduced with the sensei's chakra more than it was dignifying for his ego, so he was pretty sure to recognize the man's chakra pattern by now. By the lack of any response, the jounin tightened his hold a bit on the man's still sweaty skin and gave the still form a firmer push.

If he did get attacked by a disoriented shinobi, at least then he would know that they were getting somewhere.

The opening of the bleary, dark eyes was also a good sign, and Kakashi felt a strong stir twist his gut as the unfocused eyes blinked slowly before attempting to direct themselves at his masked face. Without his mind noticing what the rest of him was doing, his body leaned closer over the silently breathing man, and the mismatched eyes crinkled into a warm smile. "Welcome back, sensei. Had a good nap?"

"..W..wt.." The jounin gave a slightly worried look at the full lips that seemed uncooperative on the scarred face, and before he actually was able to question since when his hand had gained its autonomy, a pale finger was pressed on the full, sun-kissed lips. Something flared a bit inside Kakashi's upper chest by the abnormally intimate feeling of the other's warm skin against his own, and apparently he wasn't the only one surprised by it if the suddenly widened stare of the dark, shocked eyes was any hint.

With an effort, the infamous Hound made an awkward smile crawl on his hidden lips as he calmly removed the digit from the dry lips and rubbed the rebellious finger with his thumb. Then, he realized it. The lips had felt dry as sandpaper, and for a shinobi whose both hands had been hardened by the work on the battlefields and took nowadays more than a feather-light touch to sometimes distinguish differences of textures on his fingers, that said a lot.

How stupid can a genius be, really?

Instead of smacking himself on the head for overlooking obvious matters, Kakashi gave the resting man one more smile. "I'll get you some water, sensei. Then we can try talking again, neh?" Fluidly, he stood up and walked briskly to the kitchen to retrieve his mug and the water boiler which he filled up with cold water, since he really didn't look forward for wasting time searching for an undoubtedly non-existing jug, before reappearing into the bedroom just in time to see the fiery-tempered chuunin sitting clumsily up on his futon. He gave the man a flat stare, knowing perfectly well that should he try to force the man to stay still he would only get a couple of more bruises to accompany his older ones. Then again, now he also didn't need to hold the man up in order to make him drink. He wasn't disappointed. Not really. "Maa, sensei, not even fully dressed and already going up and about."

Well, at least the blush was still perfectly functional and existent.

"Sorry, sorry, just couldn't help it," Kakashi chuckled at the groggily unimpressed and unsynchronized blink he was given as he crouched down next to the muted man. He could feel the dark eyes on him as he filled his mug with the clear tap water and then offered it to the chuunin. "Here. Let's get some hydration in you. Then you can test those lungs on me."

As their fingers met over the mug's surface, the spark of a blue light that stung on their fingers was a rather unexpected factor in the equation of passing an object to one another, and the mug was almost dropped on the blanket that was still covering the recuperating teacher who had yanked his hands back from the ignited oddity. As he held the innocent mug in his slightly shaking hands, Kakashi's mind was racing with top speed.

...Alright. They needed another method.

The former ANBU captain placed the mug gently on the floor and glanced the expectant-looking chuunin. The man could surely take the hint. After a small silence and seeing that nothing significant was going on in the teacher's head, the pale hand patiently pushed the mug a bit closer to the mattress. Ah. Now the light went on in the brown eyes. Kakashi observed calmly as the tan hand approached the ceramic mug, hovering just above the smooth surface, and the dark eyes tried to focus on the chuunin's target. At the strangely helpless sight, Kakashi began to understand there to be something else off as well than just the missing voice when concerning the actions of the younger man. "Wait." The hesitating hand stilled. The gray eye peered more closely to the dark ones that had looked back up at his voice. "Do you see me, sensei?"

The unsure silence was all he needed. A frustrated groan arose from his throat. He was getting good at making their situations more difficult than they really were. With a renewed plan, while feeling a bit peeved at himself at the same time, the Sharingan user picked up the mug once more and fixed the unseeing eyes with a stern look. "I will hold the mug while you drink, if that's alright with you." A slow, albeit wary nod was given to him, and for a moment Kakashi wasn't even sure if the blankly staring man had actually understood the words that were spoken to him. Nevertheless, he had a patient to look after, and even without any motherly instincts to begin with, he figured it shouldn't be that hard to get an over twenty-year-old male to drink while they couldn't see even their own nose.

After all, he had been to a few parties in his life when he had found time for it.

He carefully pressed the edge of the mug on the still lips, and as they tentatively nibbled the hard rim, the ex-ANBU really hoped that he could look somewhere else at that moment. "Now drink up, sensei." His voice sounded harsher than he had meant, and he watched as a somewhat hard gleam flashed in the dark eyes before the lips parted enough for him to tilt the mug and let the water pour down the apparently very dry throat.

For a few minutes, the subtle sound of repetitive gulps was all the noise heard in the bedroom of the two shinobi.

Feeling the mug being empty, and hearing a satisfied, small sigh leaving the now moistened lips, Kakashi removed the ceramic dish back for a refill, figuring that it might take more than just one dose to revive the chuunin's collapsed systems. Then, on the passing, idle idea, his hands stilled as they offered the second mug to the younger man. Could that be the trigger?

"...M..more.."

The jounin's eye snapped back to reality and focused itself on the now more deeply breathing chuunin. With a small nod, the jounin pressed the mug once more on the man's mouth and let the water pour in. The rising moan from the man's naked chest was doing surprising things to his own body, and as the sensually flowing sounds became increasingly louder and more frequent with each passing gulp the younger man took from the mug it was starting to make the usually detached jounin very restless with his eye unthinkingly kept on the greedily drinking man's throat.

More precisely on the spot that once had had his teeth marks on it.

Iruka was floating. Or that's what he had felt inside his body as the first drops of water had touched his mouth. The blue shadows around him had vanished for the time being, but he really didn't mind it as long as the electric blue creature that was caressing his insides with each pulse that he was given with the water kept on going like it did. His veins were in fire and it felt so, so good on his lips, so moist and tingling and intoxicating. When he had felt the water's alluring smell in his nose the second time when the creature had made his lips burn with the solid object that was pressed against his needy mouth, a mug perhaps, Iruka had found himself wanting more.

Way more.

"More.." The hoarse whisper that was dropped from the glistening lips on the tan man made Kakashi shift his a bit uncomfortable crouch as the ticklish sensation intensified briefly on his fingertips. What was happening to the young teacher?

"We'll have a break after this third one, alright? Best not to drown you if we wish to avoid Tsunade-sama's fists again." The teasing voice did make the chuunin's eyes react on some level, but the weird, tingling feeling on his hands only increased even after he had removed the mug from the teacher's mouth. He would have to look into that matter once they were finished. Once more, after the last fill, the ceramic edge found the dry lips, and Kakashi noticed that the strangely interesting sensations had reached his upper arms as well. He should call for Tsunade after the teacher had had his fill. He should also keep his eye out if anything else were to happen during the time it'll take the Hokage to come over. There were always the few things one should be ready to expect, after all.

What he didn't expect was for the surprisingly strong hands to appear on his both wrists and lock them in place. Oh hell-

The low growl erupting from the other's direction made the hair on his neck prickle as an abrupt wave of electricity surged through his chest the instant when a hard shower of pinprick-precise tremors fell over his skin. Startled enough to dislodge his hands when it was still safe for them both, the masked jounin pulled his hands and managed to stop the other man from drinking, which resulted with a way too sinful whimper than it really should, but apparently the teacher was feeling relentless. The tan fingers tightened their hold on the now struggling pale wrists, and the jounin caught himself staring as the water that was spilled amidst their spontaneous match started to travel down the taut mass of flesh that belonged to his current captor. The moment he felt a wet, agile tongue trace the inside of his palm, a shockwave of an electric sting that could only remind him of his raikiri pierced his arm muscles and made the mug fall from his numb fingers, the piece of pottery taking the chance to roll away at a safer distance. With a stronger pull against the hold, Kakashi managed to dislodge one hand and also made the teacher to lose his blanket as the man resisted the abrupt pull by pushing the mattress with the strong legs, which honestly wasn't helping Kakashi's erratic pulse to beat any slower as more sweating flesh was revealed to his now hazy vision. What made his gaze stop to a halt and his brain cells to fry up with a white flame that took over his whole being wasn't solely the admittedly delicious view of the twisting and quivering body of his younger colleague.

It was the rapidly forming hard bulge in the man's black boxers.

Iruka was willing, by heavens he felt like an animal in heat and yet the blue deity only teased him with the chaos of arousing sensations running over his skin and curling around his gut into a hot and throbbing cocoon. He felt feverish and the world spun in his mind more than it was considered healthy, but at the same time he was more clear-headed than in a long time. He tightened his hold on the alluring creature and let out a moan of pleasure fall from his trembling, parted lips at the sudden jolts of electric ecstasy that came directly in contact with his heated skin. The sheer pleasure he felt on his tongue as he greedily mapped the glowing flesh with it was almost enough to make him come right then and there. He wanted. He wanted and if he had anything to say to it, he was going to take whatever it was that he wanted to have.

This was getting beyond the definition of a bad situation. The shit was hitting the metaphorical fan with more force than Kakashi managed to prevent and it was getting really hard to ignore the unmistakably willing, wanton body that struggled passionately against his steel-hard hold as he had decided on another tactic and managed just barely to keep the man within his arm's reach, his other uncontrollably shaking arm ready to knock the chuunin out if things were to go that far. The rich, heatedly murmuring baritone that was suddenly said way closer than just a second ago caught him by surprise and made his nerve endings flare up into frantic fire as the panting breath brushed against his masked neck. "..Fuck..more..!" What the-

Iruka felt his lungs burn, he was almost there, he was so close, yet the demon kept him on the edge no matter how much he tried to relieve the scorching heat in his groin and make the blue fucker to take the fucking hint. He gave a keen whine at the back of his throat as a sudden, stronger pulse pierced his whole system and made him arch his back in orgasmic bliss that was right there for him to ride if he could...just...reach-

What made Kakashi doubt his quickly fraying sanity was the firm grip he abruptly found taken on his dark singlet that was pulled roughly to make him topple over the lustfully panting chuunin and the forceful lips that he felt suddenly being pressed against his gaping ones.

What made him completely lose it, though, was the tan hand that had taken a hold on his free arm and suddenly offered him an impressive handful of one clearly aroused male fellow nin as he soon realized having grabbed something very much hotter and slicker than the man's pants fabric should have ever felt like. The instant he felt the moist and pulsing flesh against his calloused fingers, a violent surge of frenzied electricity that had taken a way too liquid form for his liking licked wantonly its way over every spot it could possibly reach within his struggling and helplessly trembling body. All he could do was to tense his muscles as he fought the losing battle to maintain even the thought of his vanishing control, which to his very distant dismay made him also to curl his hand around the twitching length on the frantically pushing hips.

Yes! Oh kami yes! As the world fell into a erratically pulsing wonderful heap of pure, blinding pleasure, Iruka could only numbly register himself sobbing in relief and crying his suffocating lungs out as his aching flesh was met with the demon's divine hand. The tan hands clawed on the body he held on desperately when the last threads of his mind exploded in white light as the devil that was holding him found the spot that made even the hardest men weep in overbearing joy, the thundering jolt of a lightning bolt erupting from the skilled fingers hitting where it really counted in this match of lust.

As his vision turned bright blue and he could hear the cry of ecstasy being screamed against his lips when a fierce pulse of lightning took over his captured hand and he felt the hot, scorching mixture of heat and pain explode within both his groin and chest, Kakashi let out a shocked cry of his own, knowing to wait for the darkness yet to claim him as his mind ceased to work.

However, as the life's irresponsible twists had it, it never came.

With his ears ringing by the deafening silence, the jounin slowly surfaced back to reality that had been lost from him on a peculiarly bizarre road of life, gasping for breath with his burning lungs. The darkness surrounding him was drowning, and he had to fight off a rising panic by telling himself that the most dangerous creature within a hundred miles was currently only him. It felt like a lead weight had settled on his chest, and as his sense of touch started to function on his skin once again, he could already anticipate to be soaked from head to toe once more, the cold, already drying water making his clothes cling on his slightly shivering skin. By the time his other senses came to their senses (apparently he still could make bad puns, so he had safely avoided the unappealing prospect of an accidental lobotomy), he became distinctly aware of a few things.

The weight on his chest wasn't actually caused by the prompt attempt of drowning himself on dry land, but from the lax, well-trained body that had, by the looks of it, passed out on him. The young man was breathing through a raspy throat and there could be seen a sliver of sated glow on the high cheekbones. The reason for that interesting finding was the second, more disturbing thing to register in his gradually sharpening mind. As he could only stare at his hand that was still holding onto the now sufficiently pleasured and thoroughly cum-coated better bits of one academy teacher, and as it seemed that it wasn't only the chuunin that had taken the fair share of the man's release, Kakashi became also grudgingly aware of one persistently pressing matter that wasn't actually so tiny nor so insignificant and definitely not merciful enough for his boxers to recover from it anytime soon.

Quietly and carefully, the hot and bothered jounin peeled the tan teacher off of him, pulled the black boxers more properly on the narrow hips (while reminding himself to wipe the man clean instead of risking a murderous chuunin whenever the man decided to wake up again), tucked the thoroughly sweat-soaked shinobi under their both blankets and then, painstakingly slowly, hobbled towards their bathroom in order to take care of his own hard and throbbing problem. What the hell had happened between them in those few minutes when the usually very well controlled man had seemingly taken matters into his own hands was hard to grasp by Kakashi's logical mind that had taken a blow of its own, as he had thought to have gotten the hang of their pestering elements and the causing impulses they seemed to require.

For the teacher to throw himself at him over three doses of water was an exception in the rule he couldn't have seen coming even if he had been sitting on it.

With the dark clothes dropped to the floor, the now painfully horny copy-nin stepped under the lukewarm shower spray and cast a narrowed glare at the current source of his wildly running pulse. After a moment of a fairly one-sided staring match, one pale, strong arm steadied the assassin's body against the pale-colored tiles as the other, trembling hand wrapped itself around the throbbing length and a quiet hiss escaped from the jounin's gritted teeth as he slowly set the pace to match his spinning thoughts on the problematic issue he was now facing. How the things between them will remain after the teacher would wake up again and possibly even remember something, the now heavily panting ex-ANBU captain wasn't sure if he wanted to spend the rest of the already absurd night pondering it.

Only one thing was certain.

He was going to kill Tenzou.

Chapter Text

The door to the bedroom slid open, and as the soft clicks of the heels followed her steps, Shizune walked slowly into the dark, closed training room. With a small yawn, the medical jounin stretched her back and heard a couple of pops coming from her spine, knowing that she'd need to take a look at those particular points based on the volume of the sound. Right now, though, she had a more important matter to focus on. Looking back in the bedroom, the dark eyes swept over the still form of the chuunin they had come to check up soon after they had received Kakashi's urgent call saying that Iruka had woken up before being knocked out again for a reason yet unknown. Although the way Kakashi had looked at the man when he had reported did make Shizune's eyebrows rise a bit.

She did know better than to pry about the seemingly timid jounin, though, and sensing that Tsunade had spotted the same was all she needed to know on that matter.

With a small, exasperated sigh directed at the two idiots who were currently making it harder for her to keep her superior away from alcohol, the young woman turned her attention towards the shutted doors that led to the terrace, her keen instincts picking up the other two presences behind them. The first rays of light should have reached the house by now if the fatigue she felt in her muscles was anything to consider. Then, the silent heels took her back through the silent bedroom and into the corridor that led her way to the kitchen. While filling her cup with coffee for the fifth time, the woman made a mental note to check on her caffeine levels while at it.

With those last, relaxed thoughts in mind, she walked back to her sleeping patient.

"...Is that so." The subtle nod was registered even though Tsunade didn't look at the jounin who was sitting by her side. The brief glance at the unreadable, gray eye that peered over the dark mask was what she needed in order to press forward. "I always hated fighting against stubborn kids, so I advise you to spill it all out before you force me to loosen up that tongue of yours."

The shift of the tired, pale-skinned body spoke of more than just lack of sleep, and her eyes narrowed a fraction on that note. The Hokage could sense that her shinobi was agitated to the tiniest nerve, and she was reluctant to think that the remark of fighting might just become reality if she didn't keep herself alert. The lazy drawl gave nothing away, but she knew better than to rely on that illusion.

"Maa, you make it sound as if you cared, Hokage-sama."

A challenging rise of an eyebrow was given to that. The silence that sealed the hidden lips of the silver-haired jounin made the blonde woman give a long, pensive look at the village surrounding them, and for a moment, the S-class assassin and the legendary sannin measured the wall of hushed information and lacking reports between them. Knowing that Kakashi had more than sufficiently practiced the tricks and traps of trading information, and hoping that she could ease up some of that odd air that had enveloped one of her finest men, Tsunade decided to offer the silver-haired man a rare exception of a Hokage giving the asked intel first."...You've seen his back, Kakashi."

After a small beat of heavy silence, a slow nod was given before the gray eye gave a narrowed look at the backyard and the long, dark shadows of the fence wall crossing it. Her offer had been received and accepted, apparently. "...That I have, Hokage-sama."

"Good. Then this mission hasn't been all wasted," came the dryly chuckled response, and as Kakashi turned to look at the amber eyes he felt on him, he could see the tiny spark of amusement in them. Before he could inquire further about the odd note in his leader's words, the spark disappeared as the Hokage squinted her eyes, hence making the ex-ANBU captain aware of his now more vulnerable position against the following interrogation as the leading medic had caught on the interested look in his gray eye. Damn that woman and her ways of knowing her shinobi. "How are you feeling at the moment?"

After a fleeting moment of consideration, Kakashi gave the healer a smiling, yet carefully composed look. "Maa, in higher spirits than usually, I guess." Unless one counted in the latest moments that still made his thoughts freeze, his groin twitch and his chest give a dull ache as he replayed the details over and over on the perplexing occurrence, the still missing pieces making his head hurt. What the hell had happened between him and the fiery-tempered chuunin?

As his luck had it, he knew Tsunade to be well aware of the fact that something was being held from her. He should have also known what she could do with the gained knowledge. "Nothing beside giving your teammate an almost lethal heart failure by being an ass and then knocking him out once more just after being awakened by giving him the same substance which seemed to have caused the earlier collapse as well, only to give half-assed intel on the situation and treating your Hokage like an idiot on the matter? I'd say that you're on fire at the moment, Hatake."

The imaginary kunai that was sent at her head by the steel-hard gray eye could have made even Danzo cower.

A light wave of a well-manicured hand made the gathered retort trip on itself on the man's snappy tongue. "I know, I know, just asking you to humor your superior a bit here, brat. Although I'd love to hear our prim and proper sensei's reaction when he hears how he had managed to shock our finest elite out of his wits by doing something that even the great Hatake Kakashi is afraid of revealing to his highest nin in command. " A feline, almost lecherous grin spread on the woman's face when more than just a few entertaining scenarios on the spoken relationship between the two men popped into her slightly miffed mind. After being alerted from her quarters more than enough for a while and being constantly challenged with half-censored information and bratty attitude, she did feel a bit justified to test the adrenaline levels of the source for her current migraines. "You know, there's always a risk in hindering information. To me it starts to look as if the man had sexually harassed you or something akin to it."

The shade of paleness that took over the masked features did make her itch for checking the jounin's blood pressure. Awkwardly, Kakashi cleared his throat and cast an uncomfortable look over the high fence, his shoulders more tense and the whole body way readier to bolt than a second ago, a note that was carefully tucked away in Tsunade's mind for a later look. "I would appreciate it if you kindly kept your lips sealed about this around him, Hokage-sama."

"I bet you would." The words were clearly off note with the meaning the blonde woman had put inside them, and as the intense silence crept up on them, Kakashi started to understand there to be more than just the want to tease him with the questions and suggestions. Before he could ask, Tsunade gave a small sigh and provided him with the wanted answer. "...We're not that far to distinguish anything specific, but it seems that the possibility of contamination is now ruled out. We'll continue our work with it now that the situation is stabilized here...but I can't give any promises, brat." Tsunade cast the jounin an assessing look, as if she was tempted to tell more, but her sense of ethics was voting against it.

Kakashi couldn't blame her for it, though, he of all experienced squad leaders knew the danger of passing out inaccurate information and causing the panic it usually did. Nevertheless, the feeling of ice cold dread pushed itself through his barriers and tore his gut with its freezing claw. Having the Hokage address him with way more sober words than usual was always something that set his systems on the edge. Being an ANBU and one of the most feared field nins wasn't a guarantee of any kind to escape the imminent decay and death of his body, but that didn't mean he would go down without fighting with his nails and teeth until the unavoidable end. He had learned his father's last lesson to him.

As if sensing the thoughts of the ex-ANBU, Tsunade gave the pensive figure beside her an understanding, softer look before turning to face the chill dawn.

"Fear...is a complicated thing, really." Kakashi's lone gray eye snapped wide open at the quietly spoken words, and the jounin turned his head to look at the calmly sitting woman by his side. A sorrowful smile tilted the painted lips, and as the light in the medic's eyes faded into something deeper, Kakashi knew that the woman he was watching was no longer present on the terrace, but lost in her own memories. "Some of them will hold the person back, but some will make one even more determined with their actions. Having fear is natural, and sometimes even recommended...and an excellent shinobi knows that." The skilled healer's fingers fiddled the hem of the green overcoat that had become one of her most know trademarks beside the obvious physical ones, and Tsunade directed a small, passing glance at the jounin by her side before looking at the clear sky that slowly turned into deep blue hue, as the morning passed by towards noon.

The sliding doors to the terrace opened and Shizune peeked out from the created gap, clearly giving Tsunade the sign for them to leave for now. With a curt nod at her assistant, Tsunade directed her words at the former Hound. "Lay low for today, Kakashi. Yesterday was bad for you as well, from what I can tell considering the strain in your body. You should get some sleep and then do some light exercise, but not more than just keeping your muscles warm and accustomed to the training. Maybe even eat a bit more than usually." With a tiny sigh, the older woman stood up and gave the masked assassin one last glance before she walked to her assistant on her clicking heels, her voice having gained back its usual strict tone, if more for herself than Kakashi, that the jounin couldn't tell. "I trust you to execute your orders with professional attitude, shinobi."

A tiny, dryly amused smile crept on the hidden lips. It appeared that Tsunade knew the right words to keep him under control. "Understood, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said quietly and pulled himself into a crouching position in order to stand up as well and to escort the women out.

The sudden wall of ice cold water that hit his face and body made him stumble both in his steps as with his intentions.

The pregnant silence waddled away as it came into second thoughts on approaching the now very still and wide-eyed jounin who stared long and hard at the leader of his village, especially the hefty and now empty porcelain pitcher she held in her hand. The last droplets of icy water dripped from it on the wooden boards in a same rhythm as their kin that dropped from the darkly clothed man, the echoing tips and taps being the only sounds between the three persons standing in the shy sunlight that wasn't so sure anymore if it had been safe to descend on the light gray house that had looked so nice and inviting earlier.

"My, and here I had a bet that he'd react to that," Tsunade clicked her tongue and sighed with a light mock in her voice, the clearly visible amusement pulling the corners of her red lips as she passed the porcelain dish back to mutely gawking Shizune. "Sadly, no. Just getting lost on the road of life again, apparently." And with that, while not paying any attention to the two set of eyes that were staring at her in open bewilderment, the Hokage turned on her heels and walked into the dimly lit bedroom. On her passing way through the room, the amber eyes gave a fleeting, comforting look at the resting teacher who laid sprawled on the mattress, the usually very active and bright man seemingly comatose and still as the dead. Regrettably, she wasn't designated as the fifth Hokage for sympathizing Konoha's shinobis, and the eyes of the leading healer took back their accustomed hardness as the woman snapped her command at her aide. "Come along now, Shizune, we have a village to pull through the day."

The eyes of the dark-haired woman snapped back into present on the stern words and soon enough Kakashi found himself holding a white porcelain pitcher in his hands and staring at an empty house after the front door's lock had clicked into place. The gradually warming sun caressed his back and made the slightly wet singlet become damp and clingy against his skin, which was the initial factor to pull the puzzled jounin back to the present. After two rather slow seconds, the mismatched eyes gave a blink.

Why exactly was he wet again?

As the reason for the rather unconventional morning muddled his mind, Kakashi found his legs carry him standing next to the sleeping man. Silently, the jounin observed the subtle rise and fall of the dark-skinned chest, and his ears were filled with the raspy sounds from the man's throat as the shallow breaths flowed past the lightly parted lips. Before he knew it, though, the silver-haired man soon realized his eye having settled on looking keenly on one particular spot on the chuunin's upper body. More accurately one specific spot on the man's neck.

The discovery made Kakashi stop sorting through his scattered thoughts and made it all form into a more simple solution he knew he should act upon at that moment.

He really needed his coffee.

...67...68...69...no, no dirty thoughts now...70...

Drops of sweat fell on the matted floor and the training room's walls resounded with small grunts and hisses as trembling, pale arms pushed a well-built body up from the floor in rhythmical intervals.

..75...

Kakashi gave a tiny gasp as his left shoulder gave a twinge of pain. Nevertheless, he pushed himself up on his arms which were already weeping under the weight of his body, the jounin ignoring the discomfort and continuing the task. As always.

..76...

His thighs twitched and trembled as they struggled to hold straight, and his toes were clearly against his idea of fun about being pressed against the floor while doing the push-ups. He would have a nice chat with his ungrateful body the moment he had regained his full chakra reserves back. They would have a hoot.

..77...

Almost..there..78...79...

The hidden lips twisted into a snarl and Kakashi could feel the strength leave his shaking arms, but even if it would kill him, he had to pull the finishing move all the same. Gai would never let him hear the end of it if the man ever found out that not only wasn't he able to pull through more than only half of the amount in push-ups when compared to their usual muscle training but also skipped the last move due to some minor and petty reason such as severe muscle cramps. Feeling his whole body tense up and his tendons letting out a very pained whine concerning his following move, Kakashi once more relied on his training of withstanding pain when needed and, with an effort that made him briefly wonder if he was indeed getting too old for this shit, pushed his lower body up to stretch vertically above the sweating torso, his jerking calves setting themselves straight and giving space for the following thighs and knees while his toes wiggled towards the ceiling. A foul curse escaped the jounin's masked mouth as he agonizingly slowly pushed and maneuvered his body to stand on his outstretched hands, pale fingers digging into the woven mat that was already soaked with sweat. The falling, cooling drops that traveled over his face were making it harder to see and breath through the dark fabric that was still covering both his nose and mouth as they wiggled their way between his frowning eyebrows down to the tip of his wrinkling nose and seeped into the fabric while some of them took a detour across his eyes and cheeks and were unnervingly uncooperative for letting go of his eyelashes. Tilting the face upside down for a moment after regaining the feeble balance was clearly not the sharpest idea in the shinobi codex, as the almost soaked mask fabric suddenly released its excessive water down his shocked nostrils and the moisture on his lashes slipped underneath his eyelids.

Who said it was wise to train with a mask?

The passing mental whine made the ex-ANBU chuckle darkly and thus he almost sneezed when yet another assault of water drops hit his nose. Quickly, the spluttering man turned his face down to meet the floor in order to prevent from soiling his mask with something very different than skinpore-produced body fluids, and amidst his rising black humor for the whole situation, the gray eye turned steel-hard on a small, passing thought that flipped off at one of his nerves on its way out.

Apparently the same idiot who had severely underestimated his opponent in their game.

Once having his complaining body finally settled straight up in the air, the jounin started his descending to the floor. He could feel his legs sway dangerously to all sides as he continuously sought out his balance point, and let out a heavy heave as his nose finally touched the rough mat underneath him. Sadly, that was only half of it. A mixture of disbelieving laughter and aggravated cursing left the man's mouth as he painstakingly slowly started to straighten his arms once more, feeling his triceps scream in agony at the irrational maneuver he was clearly pulling just to piss his muscles off-

-just like he did with the sensei in the other room.

The passing thought made his gut feel as if it had been hit with a heavy punch, and the lips behind the dark mask pulled themselves back to reveal the gritting teeth behind them. An aggressive growl echoed in the training room as Kakashi with a final, desperate push heaved himself standing on straight arms and forced his mouth to form the last, final number he was currently all too willing to annihilate from their numeral system.

"..Eighty."

As his muscles took the permission to collapse under him, the infamous assassin fluidly rolled from his arms on his back and laid down on the woven mats, the man breathing deep and slow for a few minutes as he set his pulse down on a calmer level. The dark eye opened to observe the ceiling above his panting figure, and a pale hand rose to peel off the dark, damp fabric from the exhausted man's face. A trickle of sweat tickled the thin lips, and the fingers that trembled from the over-exertion slowly chased the drops away from the soft skin. The tingling moistness remained on the usually hidden mouth, though, and as his skin started to cool off after the straining exercise, Kakashi could feel his whole body being covered in a distinct layer of dampness that was merrily seeping into his clothes. A tentative tongue ran over the salty aftertaste on his upper lip, and with a quiet inhale, the lithe body rolled on its side while the gray, sharp eye cast a long look at the dim bedroom just dozen feet away.

The alarm began its beeping, and as he willed the blasted machine to die away and leave him be for now with no luck for the wish getting granted, the jounin picked himself up from the floor and promptly whacked the beeping nuisance silent before ambling towards the kitchen.

Tsunade gave a tired sigh and felt the cool surface of the table press against her forehead as she laid her head down for a brief break. Somewhere in the background she could sense Shizune roll her eyes, the younger woman being surprisingly quiet after they had returned into the Hokage Tower and had continued their work with the odd sample, a task which was proving to take longer than she would have liked it.

The sake bottle she held in her hand was just for stimulating her vigorously thinking mind, of course.

The pensive eyes fell shut for a while and a more pronounced sigh left the painted lips. Those two troublemakers were really giving their all to make this mission memorable. It also seemed that the notion applied on more levels than one as well, and the blonde woman tilted her head up to rest her chin on the hard wood, a thoughtful frown pressing the light eyebrows down on the youthful face. Before the present mission the two men had been worlds apart for what it came to their personal histories, but she could bet all her sake for that to be one of the reasons they still put up with each other. But, as her latest discussion with the arrogant blockhead had it, she had begun to sense there to be more to it than mere professional curiosity when the two shinobis were considered.

The dark look in the gray eye had carried something else than just concern in it, just like the brown eyes had when the Hatake brat had given them all a heart-attack for the first time.

The hypothesis of the ANBU's part in the whole mess had still remained as an odd question, to which she hoped to get an answer rather sooner than with yet another close call from death. For now, though, it seemed to be the best to let the men set the pace for sharing their information, as irritating as it was for her to be the last to know about the things happening on the mission. At least they had all learned many new things that had been immediately put under further inspection, so technically she couldn't complain. That didn't mean she would decrease the number of empty bottles on her study's floor anytime soon, though.

"Tsunade-sama."

The alarming undertone in her loyal assistant's voice was enough to make the hold on the bottle tighten for just a fleeting second.

It had been only a matter of when, hadn't it.

A mane of silver hair thunked against the kitchen cupboard and a pitiful groan escaped the masked lips.

The gray eye stared irritated at the almost empty coffee tin, and the lonely, almost apologetic chugs of one tiny coffee maker filled the desperate void of sounds that had taken over the sunny kitchen. Then the narrow eye shifted to look to the side of the currently hurting silver-haired head, and as the perceptive gaze traced over the still splintered cupboard door which currently didn't have an infamous jounin hitting his head against it, the deadly fingers tightened their hold on the unfortunate metal box.

By the time the wandering eye reached the wooden tea box that sat on the counter with a thin layer of dust on it, the silence had slowly snuck out of the back door.

A quiet huff left the painted lips as the keen eyes turned away from the riddle before them, and Shizune knew her leader well enough to wait patiently for the following order. Even Ton Ton was attentive and seemed to sense the twirling thoughts of her friends as the tiny piglet stood by the women and looked back and forth between their unreadable faces.

The voice that carried the order was sharp and left nothing to argue about. "Run the tests once more."

The daylight passed over the vast sky towards the evening, the rays gaining orange glow with passing minutes and the retreating light lengthening the shadows throughout the bustling village. As it crossed paths with an other shade of orange on its way, the shy rays blushed and scurried over the well-worn pages that had seen both peaceful nights and bloody battles, the words written on them bringing solace to many masked soldiers and comfort for the lonely minds while the lush illustrations made the pulse or a warrior beat a bit faster and providing the guarded souls the craved act of letting go of themselves just for a brief moment.

Softly, a pale finger traveled on one of those described pages, the deft digit tracing the forms of letters printed in coherent order while the unseeing eye stared at the paths it created on the off-white sheet.

Abruptly, the book covers were snapped closed and a lithe, strong body stood up from the wooden floor. Silently, a pair of legs made their way into a dark, ascetic room and to the small alarm leaning against one of its walls. Gently, the orange travel-sized volume was put down next to the alarm which was taken in the nimble hands and set for twenty minutes. For a beat, the subtle tick of its clock-precise mechanism filled the heavy air between it and the one holding it before it was put back to its place next to the abandoned book.

Without a sound, the silver-haired man, one of the most feared assassins of his time, the man of thousand jutsus and the Konoha's leading former ANBU captain (after one specific Uchiha) turned on the balls of his feet and slowly, ever so slowly slid his legs on the matted floor in patterns so familiar to him. Patterns he knew by heart ever since he had been welcomed in his ranks. The right leg stopped and the left leg was fluidly lifted in a high spin kick once, twice, thrice, the pale-skinned body shifting its angles based on the body parts the shinobi yielding the deadly limbs wanted to damage and destroy. The strong arms were pulled close to the gradually warming body, the tightly curled fists ready to lash out whenever given permission to by the mind commanding the synapses that were connected to the working muscle tissues.

Sharply, the fists flew through the air, the gusts of air whooshing around the swiftly moving hands that wove their ways by swinging, jabbing, piercing and cutting, thus rendering their thought targets immobile. The movement of the jounin's upper body picked up the speed and slowly matching the shapely legs that turned, twisted, kicked, slid and crushed with their heels, calves and shins, and the mismatched eyes were closed as the physical dimension of the moving man narrowed into one and only being of Hatake Kakashi, the Konoha's infamous lightning user. A tiny, crooked smile tilted the masked lips.

No longer the one under the name Hound. The Third had known what he was doing.

Stretching out with his senses, the jounin could feel the rough fibers of the mats under his bare feet, felt the cool air caress his rapidly attacking hands and legs, could count each of his muscles working for him on each taught and copied move he was sure to remember until his death, whether he wished to or not. His life had been a harsh teacher, after all, and as all the other nins, he knew that their strict teacher would eventually devour them all, just like the generations before them.

He could also bet that they didn't get any grades while being taken away from their reality, unless the gods of shinobi took after one peculiar chuunin teacher and the man's obsession for red markers. Although, if they would, Kakashi was fairly sure his wouldn't be anything to brag about if the dark-haired office dictator had anything to say to it. A chuckle escaped the lightly panting mouth, and the mismatched eyes turned into smiling crescents on the thought idea.

He would be undoubtedly scolded before being sent off for some after-school lessons to polish up some of his marks.

The broad back rolled forward as Kakashi delivered a heavy blow against the empty room with both of his hands, the pale fists slamming sharply into nothing. He could count the beats of his heart that still, after so many years of serving his village, felt up for keeping him breathing and functioning. As his body shifted into yet another offensive posture in a low crouch with his fists held tightly against his sides, the Sharingan user didn't pay any longer attention at the almost automatic moves his body performed, but on the inner peace that slowly fell upon his mostly never resting mind.

Whoever thought that meditating should only consist of sitting still and breathing in dull monotonous rhythm hadn't clearly visited a hidden village.

Inhaling deeply, Kakashi let go of the last threads of lonely thoughts in his mind and let his bodily reality take over his inner world. One beat after another, the genius mind slipped into soothing blankness the further he reached inside himself, the more his lungs started to pull in deeper breaths and worked together with his diaphragm, the faster his feet and fists reacted to the tiniest stimulus given by the silence, his location in the room, even the changes of light itself. While dropping down to deliver a low, cutting kick and then spinning back up on his heels before performing the combo of six cuts and two high kicks, the jounin felt his mind still completely and his being becoming whole once again.

Now there was only him.

" You're a jounin and an ex-ANBU, Kakashi-san, and I expect you to act as your rank dictates. Nothing more, and certainly nothing less."

Bad timing for a flashback, really. The silver brows furrowed on the persistent thought that repeated itself in his mind and resisted to be pushed aside for now. To his unpleasant surprise, once one had managed to push through and had found out that the playground was currently deserted from other meddling thoughts, it didn't take long for others to join it.

"...It was only Iruka-sensei who got the reaction."

His mind was apparently running out of material for it to put such old thoughts into repeat. A horizontally cutting kick spun the assassin's body around on its heel, but as the body worked for its leisure, the mind worked suddenly for a very different goal. The dark gray, narrow eye peered open when the jounin's previously acquired meditative trance vanished in a couple of beats as the gears in his head turned forward against his will. Something was picking his mind, something he had missed earlier...something that made his insides stir and blood rush a bit faster through his veins as the genius mind mulled over the given options and questions on the matter the jounin seemed to face head on now that he had once created an opening for them.

The jounin's legs traveled above him when he rolled on his back as the low windmill kick swung at the immaterial opponents within a wide range-

"Then you shouldn't have let me to get into your close range, sensei."

As he straightened himself back up and punctured the air with sharp blows, the gray eye wasn't any longer focused on the things happening around it nor was it clouded from the absence of his mind as the eccentric jounin took a look inside his head. The securely locked mental archives were suddenly pulled wide open and different memory fragments flooded all over the neatly organized shelves the deeper he examined his common past with the Team Seven's former teacher.

Their collegial camaraderie had been the focus of many rumors for a while in the village ever since they had acknowledged each other on a firmer ground after the chuunin exams, and had soon developed a unique way of communicating by combining both verbal and physical jabs with their normal vocabulary. A passing chortle left the masked mouth when Kakashi remembered how happy he had been to see the chuunin welcome him back from his mission by giving him a finger with a bright blush adorning the high cheekbones, before the ex-ANBU had found himself dodging flying pens that were thrown in pairs with a speed which shouldn't have been even possible for projectiles consisting of mere wood and lead, the spontaneous attack being later labeled as the Pen Penalty No. 32. Then again, the joke about securing the borders for Iruka's ass to feel safer again might have had something to do with that rather sizzling welcoming. It didn't take long for others to understand the explosive nature of their social encounters whenever they crossed their paths. When they met privately for training, though, they could discuss about various topics, even joke around in a different manner than in public, albeit the jounin also knew for a fact that the lightly bickering undertone they always seemed to have in their conversations would follow them to their graves.

"...Saa, you're demanding a straight answer from a shinobi? Is this something you picked up along the way when adventuring in the road of life?"

It also went for the hidden tones they both seemed determined to include in their shared thoughts. Then again, they were both trained to know that one shouldn't share the information that would most likely have them end up dead, so on the professional level he had nothing against it.

"...Well, for one, I'm fairly sure that there are smoother ways to seduce a person..."

A pale hand slowed its way through the air for a blink before the jounin's whole body picked up the earlier pace for his blows.

The personal level, on the other hand, was a completely different matter.

"If I had known the way you treat your body and mind I would have refused to work as your partner on this mission, jounin-san."

Paradoxically, one of the most mysterious jounins didn't like it when information was kept from him, moreover the lacking intel being rubbed to his face, it followed by a swamp of riddles to boot. He had meant the lecturing words he had told the infuriating bugger the other morning, and he could easily count the missions that had went very efficiently downhill because of the hindered information between the team members.

"And how does that give you the impression that I'm not afraid of you?"

They weren't sent to the front lines with the ongoing mission, granted, and everyone within their ranks were holding a thing or five from the others on regular basis, but the situation tended to change when two reserved individuals were to suddenly interact between one another for an extended period of time, moreover with an order to look after one another. Things were bound to start revolving around a few delicate subjects, intentional or not.

"Are you, by any chance, taken yet..Umino-san..?"

The meddling behavior from a third, uninvited party wasn't exactly helping either.

"This mission doesn't need your personal dilemmas to twist the results, Tsunade-sama doesn't need our disputes to wreck her precious work and as long as there's even an ounce of strength in my muscles and a capable tongue in my mouth I don't need to tolerate this fucking immature shit from you, superior or not. You're endangering our assignment only because you can't handle it when you're denied from something you want and you're forced to make an effort on the things you need."

Suddenly his nose gave a tiny twitch on the lingering sensation it had caught on amidst his vigilant brainstorming, and the jounin's mind reeled to an abrupt halt as it pecked down the odd note that had been causing havoc in his books for a good while now.

"- - the things you need."

It was the same damn odor that had made him lose it the previous times, the smell that had made him fight down the strange, sudden urges to reach for the younger man and make the tan loudmouth scream for a whole another reason than general misbehavior. The scent that had been circling around them ever since he had woken up with the damp spot on his shirt's chest and what had gradually made it increasingly hard to refrain himself around the younger man.

The scent that had been the final push for him to jump over the edge of his self-control during the last night.

"- - need."

The deadly fist stopped in mid-blow while the gray eye fixed its stare at the dark wall before it, and all that could be heard in the dark and scarcely furnished space was a deeply breathing jounin whose thoughts were now running two hundred miles per minute.

By the time the alarm went off, the loud buzz was registered too late for him to react.

The room was silent, and only the quiet tick of a distant clock was heard between the room's silent occupants.

On the wooden table, a clipboard with four orderly spread sheets of paper laid between two women. The amber eyes stared at the figures that were written carefully on the slots of the diagrams, the explanations and footnotes littering the blank spaces between the numbers and lines, them creating a web of information that could only be understood by the ones specialized in reading it.

Quickly, a pair of sliding doors were pulled open as a half-naked jounin scrambled in with fast, stiff and long steps while at the same time the pale hands did their best to relieve the muscular body from the black slacks in the same swift way they had already dealt with the sweaty singlet. The shapely legs stumbled and slipped on the tiled floor as the heavily panting silver-haired man twisted the shower's faucets with trembling hands before they were slammed against the tiled wall and the silver-haired head dove under the chill water that descended on his heated skin, the already soaking remnants of the training gear being harshly kicked to the farthest corner of the bathroom the moment they had pooled around the man's ankles.

Unfortunately, the idea of a cold shower turned out to be the worst solution for his currently forming condition, and Kakashi had to muffle the arising loud groan against his upper arm as his skin turned feverish under the assault of pleasurable liquid needles that hit his body and made the once hesitant erection double both its length and hardness in seconds. The revealed rows of teeth were gritted tightly together and Kakashi could feel his jaw nerves wail under the painful strain, but as the gray eye glared hard at the present problem the jounin was facing, and seeing that there was little hope for him to escape the dilemma as yet another, stronger wave of dizzying desire pinched all over his body, the last coherent thoughts vanished into thin air as the man was hit on the head with the memories of what was last night.

The strong hands digging into his flesh through the fabric, the keen sounds of pleasure falling from the full lips that devoured his hidden ones, the feel of strong hips pushing upwards against his-

"..Fuck..more..!"

The scorching, rapidly advancing heat ravished his nether regions the moment when his pale hand took a hold of his already leaking flesh while his nose was once more drowned in the intoxicating smell, and he arched his back on sheer over-stimulus raking up and down his spine. In his wildly whirling mind, Kakashi knew what to expect and embraced himself as the final, missing piece of the puzzle fell to its place in his chaotic memory, the name all too familiar to him vibrating suddenly throughout his quivering body and thus pushing his hand to jerk sharply on each syllable that had been screamed against his lips by the richly rumbling baritone.

After the ticking minutes had turned into half an hour, a small gleam passed the amber eyes, and Shizune could sense the shift of ambiance in the study room even before her leader had uttered a single word on the matter.

"Shizune." The calm voice gave nothing away, but the younger jounin knew not to fall for that.

"Yes, Tsunade-sama?"

"Bring me the seal book."

The pale fist cracked an innocent wall tile in half as the first course of electricity ran through the colorfully cursing man's body. The mutinous body saw its chance then and the hissing man almost bit through his bottom lip as the first, violent climax took what was its to have and made the jounin grit his teeth roughly together in order not to howl in sweet abandon.

"Kakashi!"

An attractive man with a horizontal scar running across his nose flashed before the hazy mismatched eyes in an unashamed mixture of blurry memories and lewd fantasies that could have made even Icha Icha look like a children's picture book; the deep brown, lust-filled eyes tearing a fiery hole into his burning gut and the ghosts of the heated whispers, moans, whimpers and groans kicking his whole system into overdrive when his hand picked up speed and the loud screech of his raikiri surged through the air with the pulse of a lightning bolt that caressed his throbbing cock all the way from the base to the very tip in a storm of blinding pleasure.

"Kakashi!"

Oh how he could taste the man, hear the screams which left his ears ringing, see the willing and oh-so-fuckable body offer itself to him, feel the heat, feel the slick, hard, pulsing flesh in his hands, feel the tight, hot walls squeeze around him as he would pound mercilessly in and out of the delicious, firm, round-"Ah! Ahh! AH! H-Harder, harder, please- KA-AAH-KASHI!"

It was getting increasingly hard to breathe properly, his whole body shook from the inside and the trembling arm and legs worked overtime in their attempt to keep the heavily breathing and moaning man still upright and leaning against the wet wall amidst his pleasure as he rolled his hips frantically forward into his squeezing palm. The jounin's vision resigned itself from functioning properly and exploded into bright electric blue fireworks, making him miss the hoarse shout that tore out of his own throat.

By the time the fifth release made his blindly staring eyes cross, Kakashi had already forgotten why he had learned to count in the first place.

As Shizune nodded and left the desk for a short moment to retrieve the requested item, she couldn't help but feel a small chill of dread settle in her gut as she caught a glimpse of the suspiciously smug look in her superior's eyes.

Numbly, as the final tremors of the last, painfully fantastic orgasm died away, the pale jounin slumped flush against the cool tiles, and after a couple of weak beats, the shaking hands reached over and turned off the freezing shower.

Quietly, as the sounds of dripping water drops were registered by his almost deaf ears, the ex-ANBU counted his deep gulps of breath and the beats of his erratic pulse while his head refused to acknowledge its existence for the moment. The room was no longer in the same gravity field where he seemed to be, and the gray eye started to hurt dully as it tried to focus on the blurry surroundings that felt more than inclined on dodging his eyesight every time he thought he had gotten the hang of it.

The pale knuckles lost all of their color as the skilled killer's hands curled into tight grip on the smooth metal surface.

The moment she sensed her aide having left the room, Tsunade gave the test results in front of her one last look before reclining in her chair and crossing her arms resting on her chest. The woman's eyes sought out one particular note that was highlighted among the others, and the fair-haired medic felt her painted lips pull themselves into a wry, cunning smile.

It seemed that the life in the light gray house would soon take a turn in a direction which hopefully didn't leave her with two dead bodies in its wake.

Silently, a pair of freshly washed legs stepped over the threshold, leaving a trace of minuscule water puddles on the floor boards as the pale, half-naked body slunk into the shared, small bedroom and stopped to stand near the room's other occupant.

Then, smoothly due to the years of training, the towel-covered body crouched down next to the silent sleeper who hadn't shown any signs of waking up during the whole day. The sharp gray and red eyes observed when the full lips parted with a light exhale and the dark eyebrows furrowed ever so briefly before they smoothed again on the tan forehead, the chuunin's facial expressions dissolving away into the healing sleep that Shizune had cast upon the academy teacher.

As the older nin painstakingly slowly stood up on his hurting legs and made his uncharacteristically unstable way to his own bed, the gray eye gave the slumbering younger man a short look before closing up for the night when the jounin pulled the covers over himself after having dressed up in his mask and pajama pants. While the exhausted and still hazy-minded genius concentrated on the serene sounds of the night rain against the ceiling and willed his restless mind to take a break for now, the well-trained ears of the elite nin didn't catch the subtle pop that was heard beneath a hefty pile of clean yet unsorted laundry; the black, tiny notebook seemingly forgotten due to the other things that had demanded their attention for the past few days.

Nor did he sense the sharp look he was given by a pair of dark brown eyes.

Chapter Text

As they lived in a village full of shinobis, the genins, chuunins and jounins alike had learned to live with the fact that it was more than usual to have at least one of their friends located at the hospital whenever they were visiting the village between their assignments. The mission desk rolled ruthlessly forward despite that fact, and soon enough the ones being troubled by someone's physical well-being would find themselves opening their eyes amidst beeping machines and scurrying footsteps rushing around them.

Learning to breathe, walk and talk once again.

One also knew that those chlorine-infused visits would at some point stop due to having no legs or throat to benefit from medical treatment, so as a shinobi sank deeper into their ranks, rather than worrying if all of their body parts were still attached to their bodies, the sole act of waking up without pain slowly became sufficient enough for the majority of them.

The owner of the dark brown, bleary eyes that stared at the ceiling above the tan body was more than familiar with the previously mentioned thoughts, but that didn't stop his eyes to fall shut and form a suffering frown on the scarred face while his hands rose to rub the closed eyelids with growing discomfort on the memory that was last night.

Waking up to an abrupt sound and soon realizing that it had nothing to do with breathing exercises was something Iruka hadn't bumped into during his stays in their healthcare facilities, and also something he never thought he'd encounter in any circumstances in any parallel universe. The tan cheeks heated up and a low groan escaped his lips as a pool of warmth gathered into the teacher's abdominal region due to the memory of the voices he had unintentionally overheard very clearly through the bathroom wall, each resonating groan and moan making his heart beat a bit faster as they had filled his sleep-muddled mind.

When the surprisingly hoarse scream had pierced the air accompanied with a sound that could only indicate towards one particular silver-haired pervert's famous attack, the chuunin had almost ripped his blanket in half.

Iruka was still surprised that he had managed to stay still and feign deep sleep so well after listening for what felt like half an hour to someone hitting wet skin with loud slaps that warped into resembling something completely different than a lone man having a precious moment with his right hand.

The feel of something quite solid and throbbing forming inside his boxers on that specific speculation made the dark eyes turn their timid look at the other futon that usually withheld his arrogant, lewd mission partner, who was also the culprit for causing his current arousal. Seeing the mattress empty and it having been deserted for some time ago made his dark skin gain a more cherry-tinted hue as the infamous mission room tyrant weighed his options. The dark eyes glanced cautiously at the bulge that had already created a visible bump on the blanket, and the full bottom lip was briefly worried between strong teeth as the sensations in the reckless groin only spiked up on the self-inflicted visual stimulus, thus making the hardened member twitch deliciously against the stretched boxer fabric. Oh, how he would have loved to join the man and shut the pale bastard's mouth with something that was worth of screaming for, make the masked man beg and shout and show the jounin how much nicer it was to spend one's excessive energy with an other person...had he been brave enough to even lift a finger while unwillingly listening to the other enjoying himself, that is.

Having well-functioning self-preservation instincts could sometimes be a rather big killjoy.

As he closed his eyes while letting out a frustrated growl, Iruka pressed his head further against his pillow and brought his both arms to his sides on top of the bed covers, the lightly trembling hands curling into tight fists and digging deep into the firm mattress beneath them. He could feel the increasing amount of sweat forming on his skin, and as a wave of tremors washed over his thighs and lumbar region, Iruka knew he had to reign himself in fast if he wished to avoid the subject of soiling his pants in minutes. With a deep breath, the well-trained nin concentrated his inner thoughts to discard the admittedly tempting idea of warming himself up with some unmistakably rewarding and appealing muscle training, and hence letting his libido know that as much as he appreciated the thought, the risk of getting caught by one of the most infuriating lechers he had ever met while masturbating and filling his head with dirty fantasies containing the said pervert was not something Iruka wished to take as a start for his day, his itching hands be damned.

On that note, the already frowning dark eyebrows furrowed further on the slightly sweating forehead.

...Now that he thought about it, what day was it?

As the scorching heat slowly disappeared from his hips, though not without some mighty protests, some other, also highly familiar sensation started to stir up in his awakening body, and thus made the now slowly paling man to briefly wonder life and the many pop-quiz questions it always presented him.

For instance, how many steps did it take to reach the toilet in three seconds.

A brown-haired, slightly swaying figure slumped over a white sink with a heavy sigh echoing from the tiled walls of the small toilet. The plug was placed and the faucet was turned, and for a moment the dark-skinned man enjoyed the feel of cool water against his skin as he promptly dumped his slightly flushed face into the filled sink after having managed to pull his hair into a sloppy ponytail. After a silent minute, one hand reached over, plucked the plug out and then the other joined it in order to help the heavily breathing man to rinse his mouth thoroughly.

Slowly, the trembling fingers reached and grabbed blindly for a small towel from hanging on the wall and then carefully dried off the scarred face after the now quietly hiccuping chuunin had finally managed to retrieve the desired item. After a beat, the dark eyes peered over the soft cloth and focused on their reflection that had the unnerving audacity to look right back through a small wall mirror that hung above the sink. The sight that greeted the keenly looking eyes made Iruka swallow one of the annoyingly bubbling hiccups in shock and the man felt his throat constrict unnecessarily painfully on the accidental action.

He seemed to resemble something that Hayate would have looked like at the current moment if the special jounin ever had decided to come and check up on them beyond the grave.

Then again, having spewed out somewhat lukewarm and nasty-tasting watery liquid with force that felt like twenty liters in ten minutes obviously did that to a person.

When that tiny tale of misfortune was combined with a chaos of blurry, absurd memories of blue shadows and electric fireworks mixed up with the sudden realization of his teammate howling in orgasmic abandon in the room next to him, Iruka had to concentrate his thoughts for a second to verify that he was still indeed on a surreal mission with an insane jounin rather than starring in one of the drunken stories his comrades usually shared during their shifts after the rowdy nights. Not that it lessened any of the queasy feelings that were running quite close to the definition of an unruly and sadistic hangover wrecking destruction in his intestines. Once more, the perceptive eyes rose to meet their twins through the mirror and the chuunin fixed his disheveled demeanor with a better look. He hadn't drunk any alcohol, for that he was sure, and for Kakashi to poison him he could expect to have a swifter death served to him instead of dragging it out on such sluggish pace. As psycho as the masked, porn-addicted jerk was, the man also knew their poisons, so that option was quickly ruled out. He had barfed only water, so it couldn't be anything he had eaten, either -

The brown eyes stared their reflection in stunned silence.

Burning object against his lips. Pulsating, electric sensations taking over his body. The alluring, sweet smell filling his nostrils as he greedily drank-

Oh.

The scorching heat that made him cry out in pleasure, the intoxicating feeling running down his tongue and shaft as he licked and nipped the glowing skin before him, the mind-blowing electrical pulse that ravished his whole body the moment his scream was swallowed by the demon's lips when he had pulled its hand down into his-

...Oh fuck.

Quicker than a blink, his hands grabbed a toothbrush and toothpaste from the nearby shelf and the chuunin squeezed an illegal amount of minty fresh goo on the brush before shoving it into his mouth and starting to scrub with vigor that would have made Gai proud.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fu-

"...Fuck..more..!"

The moment when the chuunin's loudly whirring mind registered the passing and seemingly superficial note, the tiny mirror on the toilet wall was soon adorning a violently spat splattered splotch of mint-green toothpaste now covering its reflecting surface. As the clumps of foam mixed with saliva slowly slid down from it and fell on the sink with wet glops, the slowly revealed reflection created an image of a man who had lost himself into his head. The wide, dark eyes stared blindly forward as the last connections were welded together in the gawking man's mind, and the moment when the realization hit him on the head, the deep blush that had been following the situation from the background saw the opening it had been prying for and hit the high cheekbones with an impressive arsenal of cherry bombs. Not that the shocked man noticed any of this, since he was far more interested in the tiny detail that was now presented to him in the life's fucked up footnotes.

It seemed that he was having an elemental hangover from having sex with something that both was and wasn't human, and to make things even worse, it also appeared that he had all but forced himself onto it.

Not only that, but he wasn't sure if it had been dream or reality, which in that case meant that it might share a connection with the horny jounin whose steamy shower moment he had the displeasing privilege to witness with his now hotly blushing ears.

A sharp knock on the wooden door made Iruka's heart, which was already having troubles with keeping up the steady pace, to try to jump out of his chest and his vision swam nauseatingly due to the sudden rush of adrenaline. "Maa, Iruka-sensei? Are you doing alright in there?"

Counting out the fact that he was contemplating on drowning himself into the toilet seat rather than letting his possible subject of unintentional sexual harassment see him in the current state then yes.

Just peachy.

Yet another knock echoed against the wood, this time followed with a more concerned voice. "Sensei? You there?"

As much as it made his skin break into cold sweat even from thinking it, Iruka knew that to be the last warning for him to give the man a verbal confirmation of being still alive on some pitiful scale before the jounin decided to break the door and force his way in, and thus he had to say something to keep the silver-haired copy-nin on the preferred side of the toilet door. The tan knuckles turned white on the tightening grip on the toothbrush and the academy instructor refused to acknowledge the disgusting feeling his mint-coated tongue created while moving awkwardly in his mouth as he searched for the right syllables to stitch together into something that sounded vaguely like understandable words.

Oh dear kami what had he done to deserve this?

"I-I'm fine, just a bit..erm..out of it...for a bit. Could..could you make me some tea, please?" The last word was barely pronounced completely as the thought of putting any more liquid into his system made a sickening tremor shake him to the very core. He was almost certain that the floor shouldn't tilt that way.

As his current non-existent lady luck had it, the genius on the other side was not convinced. "By the sound of it you need medicine instead of tea. Open the door, sensei."

On those words, an ominous tic appeared on one dark eyebrow.

The blazing, albeit a bit unfocused brown eyes turned to give a dark scowl at the infuriating door that dared to oppose his request, and the chuunin was mildly surprised to feel some of his ill sensations to step aside in fear as his lungs decided to prove the hard-headed jounin wrong on many things. "When a dying man asks for a cup of tea you do not decline him his wish, asshole!"

At least now the blissful silence lasted for more than four seconds. "..Maa, already getting better over there I hear. I'll be in the kitchen then."

"Thank you," Iruka grounded out through gritted teeth and listened keenly for the footsteps to move away from the door before slacking the hurting hold on the maimed brush and letting out a long, deep breath. What the hell had happened to him? Carefully, the gears in the brown-haired head turned as he once more commenced brushing his teeth. The missing memory fragments were once again plucked out of their hiding places, the tiny pieces gradually creating a better image on what had happened to the short-tempered chuunin after he had agreed on giving the silver-haired pest a massage, the teacher replaying the fragments of their discussions all the way to the point when all had gone black in his eyes. As far as he was concerned, apart from Kakashi being the jolly prick the man always was, there was nothing out of the ordinary happening between them until his element had apparently decided to take the matters into its own liquid hands, and as a tormented groan left his mouth, Iruka looked down to cast a narrow glare at his treacherous body. The following scenes after the blackout were still quite a difficult story to comprehend as the small memory losses made it harder to grasp the whole image, but seeing that throwing up for having just a wet dream had close to nigh possibility to ever happen, the chuunin was forced to face the other facts that made even less sense to him.

For instance, he was pretty sure he didn't own a pair of plain cotton boxer briefs with the pattern of tiny blue and black shurikens.

As he held the freshly used tea sieve in his stilled hand, Kakashi found himself suddenly staring at something that in its past life seemed to have been something akin to a toothbrush, the pitiful-looking remnants of the dental hygiene product still wiggling for a couple of seconds from the power behind the impact that had made it embed itself halfway into the wooden cupboard door just three inches away from his silver-haired head. The moment he felt a hand grab him roughly by the dark singlet, pull him around and shove him back against the counter, the copy-nin appreciated the polite warning he had been given. Not that he got to relish on the given fact, since soon enough he found himself staring straight into brightly gleaming brown eyes that were filled to the brim with both embarrassment and anger when the furious chuunin cornered the bewildered jounin.

"You have five seconds to explain why exactly I am wearing your boxers before our village loses one jounin from its ranks," the heated baritone murmured in a tone which could have made even Gaara whimper like a sissy little toddler.

Being taught to carefully asses the situation before getting his ass kicked, and not being entirely sure if he had heard the man right in the first place, Kakashi gave a slow blink at the rather unexpected phrase that had made his self-defense reflexes halt in total confusion. "..Could you kindly repeat that, sensei?"

If Ibiki ever needed someone to train his interrogators on a menacing gaze, Iruka would have a good third job as it was.

Hell, one could cut adamantium[1] with that look.

Unexpectedly, the chuunin decided to go with verbal torture before the physical.

"WHY THE HELL AM I WEARING YOUR BOXERS?!"

During a brief, utterly baffled moment of silence that fell on them after the short explosion of volume, the copy-nin gave couple more blinks. His what? Quickly, he risked a glance over the seething, tan man, and the further down his eye traveled on the well-built body, the better the jounin started to understand the situation he was currently in, and thus he became also very much aware of the extraordinary sight he was greeted with. The smooth, slightly scarred dark skin expanded over the taut planes that created the tempting package of his temperamental colleague, and there, wrapping around that tight and pert ass were...his boxer briefs.

...What the-

As soon as the hoard of questions on the current subject started to scream over each other in his head, the most plausible explanation on how his own underwear had managed to invade such a dangerous territory on the younger nin's anatomy pounced him and his pale hands gave a subtle twitch as a rush of adrenaline made the blood pump faster in his arteries.

Changing the other's dirtied underwear in complete darkness after having blindly wiped the narrow hips clean hadn't apparently been the best of ideas.

Seeing the tan skin contrast exquisitely against the multicolored fabric of his boxers and noticing that the peeved sensei was also unthinkingly doing a very good job in making his superior to understand that they were definitely compatible on certain physical areas, didn't really help in putting the surfacing passionate memories of previous nights back into their securely locked locker behind three fifteen inch thick steel doors. The ex-ANBU quickly added a new tick on his long list of reasons for wearing a mask over his face. What was worse, when the masked man realized it to be indeed his voice that blurted the following words through the thick silence that had fallen between them, it was already too late to kill the daring brain cells for prompting his tongue into doing that: "Maa, if it helps any, you're sure filling them up quite nicely, Iruka-sensei."

Somewhere in the background, the silence was hit unconscious by a stray sledgehammer.

As the jounin fought down the urge to rip off his inconsiderate tongue, a pale finger was lifted in the air between the men as a correcting gesture. "...Let me rephrase that-"

As it was, it had zero effect, and the jounin suddenly had a barking chuunin almost biting off his masked face. "SINCE WHEN does one share their underwear with their mission partner and then furthermore compliment their looks in them?!"

Shit. Kakashi knew that tone. It was time to approach the subject from a different angle before his vision got splattered into many angles. While lifting his both hands to both defense himself and calm down the fiercely blushing academy teacher whose forehead had started to sport a rather unhealthily throbbing vein on it, the copy-nin took his leap of faith. "Look, the thing is that by the time you collapsed, I wasn't there when they treated you, so I wouldn't know what they had to do in order to keep you alive. That's the only possible explanation I could think of." Alright, so he made a tiny lie there, but only for the greater good considering their mission. And for his windpipe.

Sharp as a kunai, a slender, dark eyebrow rose on the reddened face of the younger nin, but more than the obvious sign of the chuunin's surfacing professional sadism of a bright-minded bureaucrat, it was the smooth, leveled tone in the dark-haired man's voice that made Kakashi's palms sweat. "...Correct me if I'm wrong, Kakashi-san, but are you seriously suggesting that Tsunade-sama has a habit of stripping her subordinates naked in order to heal their bodies while they are apparently dying on the floor, and then just happen to dress them up in wrong underwear?"

Not paying any attention on the possible explosion tags hidden in their current conversation, Kakashi's tongue acted on the seemingly harmless opening before he could pull it back into his mouth. "Maa, maa, now you make it sound as if it was more likely that I had sex with you, sensei."

The moment his unchecked words floated in the air between them and the gray eye locked with the dark brown ones, Kakashi's heart stopped for a second and the men fell dead still over their briefly derailed verbal battle.

The theory of relativity had never felt so tangible to either of the shinobi.

Despite his shock at the older man's irrational words, Iruka could sense his whole body heating up when the thin fabric that was covering his lower body made itself acknowledged against his skin due to the mental images the other's words suddenly created in his head, the rough cotton forcing him to sense each little nuance of the jounin's underwear, which made him suddenly feel as if the man's own skilled hands were caressing every possible spot on him. Catching on the odd gleam taking over the narrowed gray eye wasn't calming his wildly running pulse, either. As the darkly clothed shinobi took a deep inhale, and by that action pushed his lean body off the counter, thus stepping within the chuunin's range, Iruka felt the hairs on his neck to stand on their ends as the exhilarating tingle of electricity traveled across his figure, the subtly intensifying buzz and the prickling sensations created by it throwing his alarms into a loudly booming orchestra of shinobi sound signals throughout his frozen mind.

This was bad.

The situation was growing out of proportions so rapidly that he was left grasping only thin air with his hands, and what was worse, Iruka couldn't will his body to move even an inch to get away from the alluring lightning user whose chest was already so close that he could feel the man's body heat on his naked skin. His muscles felt like being forced under a powerful genjutsu - and it was apparently more than fine to him. A low rumble carried through the air and the deeply resonating bass of the older man was suddenly sounding so close that Iruka could almost sense it touch his lips, the light stimulus making the breath catch in his throat as the words formed by the masked mouth hit his feverish skin.

The words he received, however, were effective enough to throw his roaring alarms off balance and make them degenerate into a chaotic cacophony of off-note honks, embarrassed beeps and utterly confused toots as the rapidly built thick tension was shattered from around them.

"It's usually polite to knock before coming in, kohai."

In an instant, as if a spell had been broken between them, Iruka spun on his heels to face the third presence in the open kitchen while hoping that the heat that was already cooling off from his skin wasn't as visible as it felt to be. Then again, sensing the armored man's focus on his bare chest did very little to lessen the uneasy feeling that made a comeback in his gut after the others grudgingly made some room for it. As he met the shadowed eyes of the porcelain-masked assassin, an odd wave of indecisive intentions pressed against him from the side where he knew the pale-skinned jounin was standing. Before he could give the silver-haired man a glance to confirm the strange sensation, the ANBU pulled out a small scroll from the belt pouch and pointed it at the former Hound.

"Tsunade-sama requested me to hand you an urgent message, sempai. It's from Jiraiya-sama." The stern answer made them both raise their eyebrows in wonder, and Iruka followed silently as the sealed, tiny message scroll was offered and received between the two elite nins. Briefly, a flash of worry passed his mind as the memory of one peculiar blond boy surfaced from underneath his present thoughts. There was a reason the words 'urgent' and 'Jiraiya-sama' were something he usually preferred not to come across in the same sentence. Especially when the word 'Naruto' was said between the lines.

Kakashi gave the worrying chuunin an unreadable glance and twirled the scroll lightly in his hand, but the gray eye was sharp and cutting as a tanto blade the second the masked jounin directed his attention back to his former colleague. "That'll be all, kohai."

With a small nod, the ANBU vanished, but the second the man was almost out of sight, the white mask turned to face Iruka, and the teacher could swear to sense the mellow-voiced man smile warmly at him from beneath the mask.

As soon as the assassin had left, the other masked man in the room made the temperature feel suddenly like having a picnic in a snowstorm. "I'll go read the message on the terrace. Have some tea, sensei." Without further elaborating on his actions, not to mention on the situation they had been in before they had been interrupted, Kakashi walked uncharacteristically briskly out of the kitchen, thus leaving Iruka look after his hastily retreating back with a positively perplexed look on the tan face.

Iruka gave a blink at the man's antics. If he hadn't know better, he would have thought that the man was evading the chance to continue from where they had been left off with Iruka's underwear problem. A small flutter in his stomach made the lean legs hesitate with their first steps as the chuunin turned to follow the other to the sunny terrace, his swirling mind contradicting loudly with his body and thus making it hard for him to form any ideas on how to approach the man when entering the same space. A small, wondering idea made both his legs and his heart to stop for a moment.

Why did he have so strong urge to approach the copy-nin in the first place?

Before he could pursue not only the oddly behaving older nin but his dodgy thoughts as well, the shift of air caught his attention and soon enough he was greeted once more with a slightly inquisitive-looking porcelain mask. Although, for a lack of better words for it, the teacher could describe the feeling he had crawling into his belly the moment he felt the ANBU's eyes on him something akin to a prey being relentlessly hunted down by a persistent predator that refused to believe that he tasted bad and was too skinny to make a good snack. Nevertheless, he wasn't letting go of his manners even if he had to kick the man off of him seconds later. "Morning again, ANBU-san. Did you have something else to deliver?"

To Iruka's surprise, even the completely masked ANBU could speak quite loudly with their body language if they wished to, and the chuunin watched curiously how the armored legs shifted their weight ever so subtly under the scrutinizing look the man found himself being shot with. If one had kept their eyes on the mask solely, though, the nervous motion would have been missed. What made the younger nin's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, though, were the rather strongly enunciated words that were said from underneath the mask; as if the ANBU knew he was placing bets in an unknown and possibly dangerous game and showed it without hesitation. "I wish to have a few minutes, if that's alright with you, Umino-san."

Now was Iruka's turn to become hesitant. What did the masked man want from him this time? "We can speak freely here, ANBU-san, if that suits you." He also preferred to have a solid wall behind his back concerning the last time he had crossed paths with the elite, but the man didn't need to know that.

As the ANBU gave him a cautious nod and turned to give a look out of the kitchen in the direction where his former captain had walked, Iruka stole a glance to his side at the object that teased him in his peripheral vision, partly for the instincts telling him to locate the nearest weapon to use if needed, and felt his eyes widen a fraction at the sight of freshly brewed green tea in a harmless-looking mug that was standing on the kitchen counter.

Where had that appeared from?

Carefully, his hand reached for the mug and Iruka took a small, testing sip. Genmaicha. Apparently the copy-nin had made a perfect brew of genmaicha for him, and he had to take another sip in order to chase away the passing heat from his cheeks. There was no way he'd blush like a schoolboy with a crush in front of someone who had harassed him against the very same counter currently pressing against his backside. The man could get some disturbing ideas.

Speaking of which.

"..ANBU-san, unless I feel your staring eyes on my face instead of my hips in two seconds, I'm very willing to forget my vow not to assault my comrades and you'll soon find your white mask shoved in a place you'd be surprised to feel it fit in quite well when used the right angle for it." Not that he could blame the unfortunate ANBU for his shitty morning, but first hugging the toilet seat, then realizing the possibility of having molested one's arch nemesis, then finding himself wearing the said enemy's underwear and after that nearly jumping the fucker in the kitchen just because his libido had suddenly developed a mind of its own, only to get interrupted again, and finally realizing that this was his fourth time presenting himself in mere underwear to the armored assassin who, kami knew why, had shown sexual interest towards him, was more than sufficient to turn any man's thoughts vile.

Somebody was melting his iron with his fire so eagerly that it had stopped being funny.

The masked assassin lifted his hands in the air as a sign for placating the unimpressed looking teacher and then slowly reached for his pouch behind his back, the shadowed eyes kept firmly in contact with the glaring brown. A dark eyebrow rose in wary interest and while he pressed his ass more firmly against the hard wood behind him, Iruka tilted his head to get a better look at what the elite was digging from his back pouch. One could never be too paranoid when it came to ANBU and their antics. What the man did pull out with a small, light hum, was far from the things the agitated academy teacher had already thought it to be, and the dark eyes gave a confused blink at the beautifully carved, wooden box that had a small wooden sculpture resembling a bonsai tree on its lid which was also apparently working as a knob. An armored hand rose to scratch the porcelain mask in a bashful manner, and the pre-genin sensei had to wonder if it was even possible for any man to have such an absurd morning as he currently was having when the mellow voice spoke out beneath the immobile, painted animal face.

"...I wasn't in the village when you..uh..collapsed, Umino-san, and just came back recently...It isn't much, but I hope you'll find it useful." The box had a warm color on it due to the golden-brown shellac varnish it had been polished with, and as the armored hand lifted the wooden lid and presented the insides of the tiny, exquisite example of superior skills in carpentry, Iruka felt a warm tide fill up his stomach.

Inside the box were ten pouches of rare teas the teacher knew to be very hard to find within the borders of the Fire country. The wide, staring eyes took in the sophisticated blends as well the pure greens and blacks, and at a loss of words, Iruka swallowed thickly as his eyes lastly fell on the final item that took over half of the box. Pristine white, delicate tea cup made out of rice porcelain greeted Iruka's eyes, and the chuunin felt the light, ticklish heat on his cheeks expand its territory down to his neck and upper back. Slowly, his hand rose up to his face and the teacher gave an awkward scratch on his light pink scar area while the dark eyes stayed downcast, the man not trusting his eyes to keep his inner thoughts concealed well enough. As the masked nin closed the box and offered it to the chuunin, Iruka had to will his hands to stay stable enough to put the slightly cooled tea down on the wooden counter and accept the gift while the gears of his mind picked up speed into three hundred miles per second.

Hell, with everything that had happened between them, he could have bet on a plethora of very different ways to use the requested minutes rather than the ANBU giving him an unexpected gift while he was still wearing another man's boxers. His fingers ran over the smooth wood, and once again the teacher was impressed by the sheer beauty of the small box, which made him wonder if the porcelain-masked man had specific ulterior wishes to be granted by giving such a prestigious token of good intentions. On the other hand, the unmistakably wooing gesture made his pulse run faster all the same.

Furthermore, now he had something hard and well-weighed to fling at the man should the situation call for it.

"Um..thank you, ANBU-san. It's very...considerate and impressively crafted." Apparently his brain was still stuck in processing the delicacy of the box if those were the only suitable compliments it could pull out of his mouth. Suddenly a sigh of a wind caressed his cheek, and the instant he understood that he was feeling slightly moist and warm lips on his skin, the warm brown eyes shot wide and a sharp gasp left his mouth. As quickly as they had pressed against his face, the lips were gone, and so was the daring ANBU, leaving the utterly surprised chuunin teacher to stare dumbly at the empty corridor before him, the slight tingle of warmth still lingering on his high cheekbone on which he had, just for a fleeting second, felt the naked lips of the dangerous, masked elite. The dark eyes turned to give an unreadable look at the abandoned tea that stood on the counter, and the tan fingers traced the delicate carvings on the smooth wood as the young nin lost himself briefly into his thoughts.

What he didn't see was the hard glare in a gray eye that had sent the courteous assassin away after a brief exchange of sharp, challenging looks over the lightly blushing mission room worker's shoulder.

Silently, the door to the corridor opened and a dark-haired head peeked out from behind it. When the path was considered secure enough and clear from any suspicious elite-ranked men, the tan man wearing his regular black slacks and a gray tank top snuck to the open kitchen and carefully filled the water boiler before setting it to boil. Gently, the nimble hands took a hold of the tiny wooden box that had been placed next to a bigger one, then the tiny lid was lifted and the delicate tea cup was gingerly taken out of the box. Then the the dark eyes swept over both the new variety of teas that waited in the golden-colored box and the lightly dusty box of his tea collection Iruka had held onto during their odd mission. The white cup was placed near the hissing boiler and the big, mahogany-colored box was lightly wiped clean from the gathered dust before it was opened for the teacher to see if his teas were still safe.

What Iruka actually saw first as he opened the sturdy lid made the slender eyebrows rise for a bit.

There, among his precious teas, was a tiny parcel of an unidentified object wrapped neatly in thin cloth, the lonely package standing out between the multicolored labels, pouches and small tins. The brown brows furrowed as the chuunin tried to remember when he could have put something like that into his box, moreover having forgotten that he had done such a thing. He knew his teas as well as the back of his hands, which could be expected from any shinobi who had been fortunate enough to live past the age of twenty, so for him to put an odd packet next to his chai and then skip the fact of its existence was as probable as Ebisu finally admitting to being a closet-pervert.

He had to remind himself to have a brief word with the special-jounin about the proper way of ogling people in public baths after he was finished with the mission.

Not that he minded the flattering attention, but everyone working in their profession knew that the prey shouldn't know when it was evaluated for being the next dinner, moreover in such a disturbing manner as the four-eyes had been gazing him. That sun-glassed lecher wouldn't recognize subtlety even if he was hit on the crown jewels with it, which was actually an appealing thought that was tucked away for later peruse in the chuckling chuunin's mind. For some reason, the brave ANBU and the man's latest act came to his mind as well, and the chuckles died as the dark eyes swept over the white tea cup.

...He really was losing it, wasn't he.

Putting aside the irrelevant thoughts of slowly becoming insane, the instructor concentrated on the tiny package he held in his hand, and as he deemed it safe enough to be opened without detonating anything nearby, the cloth was carefully peeled off of the small object-

"Have you eaten any breakfast yet, sensei?"

The unrevealed package was hastily concealed into a palm and the box lid was slammed shut as the startled academy teacher spun around to meet the questioning gray eye that was peering over the dark mask. As the rest of his mind caught up with him and kindly informed that the way he just acted made the whole situation seem more suspicious that it necessarily was, Iruka's mouth was already patching up the damage done to his usually well composed reactions. "Where did you disappear suddenly? I didn't find you on the terrace nor in the training room."

An orange book was lifted in sight with a happy wink. "Maa, are you sure you wish to-"

A flat look took over the dark eyes. "If you even imply to what I think you're about to say, Kakashi-san,-"

"Maa, maa. Just teasing you, sensei," came the smiling response, although for some reason it felt to have an edge to it. "I was summoned to the Hokage on matters concerning the letter I received. Is that a better response?"

Better than the other dozen options that had been running wild in Iruka's head. Then again, now he was presented with far more unnerving options. A sliver of cold fear tickled his sides as Iruka met the slightly concerned look in the gray eye. No. No-

"Naruto's fine, Iruka-sensei. Actually more than fine, it seems. He's progressing well, even better than he had while in Konoha." Was that a flash of remorse in the gray eye? "It was more about the things happening on the road of life at the moment."

The sharpened dark eyes cast a fleeting look at the equally narrow gray. No words were needed to let Iruka know that whatever the discussion between the jounin and their Hokage had included, it was out of his depth for the time being. Then, the keen look in the chuunin's eyes turned into more unreadable one as they shifted their attention away from the masked ex-ANBU. "I'll join you in the training room in a minute, let me make some tea first."

Taking the subtle hint for him to leave the pensive man, Kakashi gave a small nod and left the bright kitchen, the strong legs carrying the jounin out of the room with an unhurried pace.

Iruka leaned his hurting head against the mauled cupboard door (when had that even happened..?) while his palm slowly opened to reveal the minuscule parcel he had been itching to open the whole time he had felt it in his hand. Swiftly, the deft fingers peeled the cloth completely from around the light item, and as his widened eyes stared at the fragile shard held on his palm, its whiteness giving a sharp contrast against his tan skin, something heavy and hot dropped at the bottom of his stomach. After a couple of silent minutes, the chuunin's perceptive eyes turned to follow the path the older nin had taken. As a lone, long finger traced the edge of the fragile shard that once had been a part of a cup he had learned to cherish during their mission, the last, minuscule thread of an orphan thought on what he should understand and perhaps finally accept made Iruka's lips spread into a humorless and somber smile.

...He wouldn't mind being the prey.

Chapter Text

It is said that one can measure their opponents in the physical battle based on the feel of their attacks. [1] It is also said that one can deceive the enemy with their act, if both the warrior's mind and soul were used in unison in the performed ruse; if the individual, with his whole being, believed in the executed deception.

As his right foot hit the ground, Iruka spun on his heels and dashed away from the pale hands that made a grab at him, the darker man's legs carrying him swiftly out of attack range before turning his body around and stopping to a halt in a low crouch, his body bent over widely standing legs, with him facing his pursuer.

Furthermore, it is commonly known that shinobis are the masters of both accurately evaluating their chances and deceiving their enemies in the art of concealed warfare. Sneaky opportunists, one could say.

The dark eyes drilled in the figure of the quickly advancing opponent who was already on his tail, and as the older nin made a fake move first to the left and then lunged at him, the teacher set his balance point low, solidifying the crouch by pressing his heels and toes to the mat below, and prepared to meet the dangerous and lithe body with his own.

When two of the same profession meet, however, the game could become more than just an extreme game of tag for seizing the opportunity to slash the other's throat before the other manages to fatally injure one's own body.

For the silver-haired man to suddenly skid to a halt and surge to the right, thus changing his momentum from straight assault to one that came from the side, was just for the man being plain ignorant towards the unsaid and non-existing rules in their match in Iruka's opinion, and a dry smirk twisted his mouth as the chuunin caught on the other's plan.

It could become a game with their very philosophical and physical existence and identity at stake.

Before the jounin could tackle him to the ground from the side, Iruka took a few quick steps away from the assault route and rounded the man in an instant, seemingly surprising the attacking shinobi if the blink in the narrow gray eye was any indication. With a quick punch at the jounin's back, he sent the other man staggering on the mats and stop with the unfinished strategy. Slowly, the silver-haired head turned and the lonely eye gave him an unreadable look over the finely sculpted, darkly clothed shoulder. The sharp, almost steely glint in it was throwing Iruka's body into high alert, since the current look was usually meant as a brief warning for the other. The look he was given was something they had realized to have developed together during their irregular sparring days, and what they actively used to keep the other informed on the situations during their matches. Calmly, Iruka felt his leg muscles flex and fists to curl themselves ready as his brown eyes fixed themselves on the copy-nin, hoping that the inner turbulence he was experiencing wasn't visible in his steady gaze. Saying that he was feeling a bit nervous over the first match for the day was a serious understatement. The infuriating Sharingan user had yet to answer his question about the issue of misplaced underwear, never mind the other more unsettling subjects he didn't even get to bring up before the whole interrogation situation had been thrown out of the proverbial window due to the unexpected turns of events. Then again, he wasn't sure if he wished to breach the subject the second time. Annoyed with himself, Iruka couldn't decide if the ANBU had interrupted them with good or bad timing, since at that time he had already been willing to lose the control of his body as he had lost himself into the arising sexual desires towards the copy-nin. On the other hand, the chuunin wasn't sure if he even wanted to take the particular train of thought on what actually could have happened if the armored assassin hadn't stepped into the scene in that moment.

The men fell still and shared a silently challenging look, and the small silence that had wrapped itself around them intensified during each passing minute as they measured one another. As the unwritten protocol was, Kakashi was the first to bring up the subject, the gray eye hard and piercing as it gave the teacher's defensive stance a slow once-over.

"Your fighting is off today, sensei."

Despite of his intuition warning him that something was very, very badly off in the older man's remark, a small, taunting grin pulled his lips as Iruka nibbled the offered bait. "I would have to say the same about you, Kakashi-san." A silvery eyebrow was cocked in a nonchalant manner to question the said notion, and being one to face the given challenges with delight, Iruka straightened himself, shifted his weight on one leg and the skilled hands were lowered from blocking the blows to rest on the narrow hips. "The match has lasted fifteen minutes already and neither you nor me has actually landed any hits on the other if the just happened smack on the back didn't count. Even Konohamaru would realize that there's something odd going on." With that the dark eyebrows frowned. "Is there something that I should know about, Kakashi-san? You've been on the edge ever since the ANBU visited us." Not that he was doing any better with the anxious feelings twisting his gut whenever he had reached the other nin's sleek body within the hitting range, but the older man could survive without that tiny detail.

Kakashi gave the younger man a sharpened glance. The chuunin was hitting the nail on their subject with a bit too impressive accuracy, but he knew what he'd get as an answer should he question the younger shinobi too much. Then again, he wasn't regarded as an S-class jounin for his looks only. An unreadable and lazy shrug met the other man's dangerous speculations, and to emphasize the oddity of the question, more precisely to throw the other off the scent in order to gain more benefit for himself, the jounin stretched his arms above his head and gave a slow stretch both at his back and front.

The oddly evasive way Iruka turned his eyes away from him was an interesting observation.

Putting the noted action aside for later perusal, the jounin tilted his head after the stretch and gave his silvery hair a pensive, deliberately hesitant scratch while he gave a passing look to the outside scenery. The wary glance from the brown eyes wasn't neglected by his senses. "Maa, it might actually be good that we'll take it slow today, since you've been just recently healed and all that."

An amused snicker escaped Iruka's mouth before he could smother it, and he gave a slightly mocking look at the jounin across the room. "This is the first time I've heard you pull that excuse, Kakashi-san. Or were the times when you snuck out of the hospital in order to spar just an exception in the crazy jounin codex?"

The mismatched eyes turned into happily smiling crescents. "You know how seriously we jounins take the rules, sensei." The beep of the alarm drowned the low chuckle that left the chuunin's smiling mouth, and as the jounin observed the joyfully grinning man, a passing wave of warmth nudged his side for a fleeting second. Then the Sharingan user stepped to the ringing alarm and shut it down, picked up both the forgotten tea cup and his Icha Icha from the floor and turned to walk past his younger colleague. "Let's have something light to eat, neh? That might help with the second match. Plus it would be wise to stretch before that." As Kakashi on his way to the terrace offered the cup to the dark-skinned man, their fingers brushed ever so lightly against each other.

If a sharp jolt of an electric pulse ran through their arms at that exact moment, neither of them showed it in any way.

Although both sensed the suspecting looks they sent at each others' backs as Kakashi stepped to the terrace and meandered his way to the kitchen.

"I can carry my own plate, Kakashi-san." The poorly disguised sliver of a whine made him smirk.

"Without a doubt, sensei. But I'll still carry it for you, so if you just moved to the side it would be easier to make it to the spot without losing any food, thank you," Kakashi gave the chuunin a bright wink as he strode back to the terrace with Iruka following close behind his back, and the low rebellious muttering about stubborn high-ranks which was apparently meant for him to be heard made the hidden mouth spread into a wide grin. "Besides, now that your hands are free you can bring my coffee on your way."

As he heard the chuunin turn fluidly on his deadly heels and stomp hastily back to the kitchen, the copy-nin gave a small, relieved huff at his brilliant distraction tactics. The tight grip he had had on the plates relaxed a bit as the hot shivers running down his spine and hips lessened when his distance to the short-fused shinobi grew for a blissful moment. That was a bit too close call for his liking, and not knowing if the other had sensed anything made his already tense mood to gain darker layers. He couldn't risk it for the other to spot his discomfort, since he was sure the chuunin was still harboring ill thoughts towards him due to his past foolish acts on the man's watery element. The tan nuisance was sure to use that knowledge to gain leverage in their situation, and he would be a fool to think it would bode anything good to him. To make his situation even more fun, having spotted the way the full lips had been pouting as he had walked past the younger man had made his legs to wonder if, instead of walking to their regular spot on the terrace, he should have just turned around to make the scarred chuunin bump into his lips.

Even a second longer with that particular torture of those thoughts going around in his head and the academy instructor would have gotten a good eyeful either on the ceiling or the floor for presumably very satisfying forty minutes.

"I assume that you intentionally didn't brew yourself any coffee." The teasing voice made the gray eye look back at the kitchen door, and Kakashi saw Iruka standing in the doorway with a playfully accusing look in the dark eyes as the man took a sip from his steaming tea.

A sheepish, albeit a bit smug smile made its way to his hidden face. "Maa, the road of life makes one do strange things. But now that you noticed it I'm sure that you'll do everything you can to fix the outrageous grievance that dares to oppose the success of our mission, Iruka-sensei."

The eye-roll was worth it. "Lazy bastard." And with that remark the teacher shook his dark-haired head with an exaggeratedly heavy sigh and made it back to the kitchen while muttering something about Shikamaru being obviously exposed to too many lazy shinobis at younger age, the richly ringing baritone laced with warm humor the chuunin had apparently meant for Kakashi to spot.

The fish tasted way better now.

"You're running out of coffee, Kakashi-san," Iruka noted as he sat down next to the jounin and put the hot black drink close to the man who had, by the looks of it, already eaten his sandwich. A sneaky pro, indeed. "There's hardly any left in your tins."

"Ah. I guess I need to order them to bring me more, then," the smoothly resounding drawl mused and the jounin took the given coffee in the pale hands as Iruka concentrated on his light snack.

He could hear Kakashi take long gulps, even imagine the mask being pulled down for a few seconds per sip, but he forced his eyes to stare forward towards the sunny yard and the village visible behind the high fence wall. He may have seen the man's heavenly body up close and gloriously naked, but there was no way in hell that he'd endanger his health any more than he already had by trying to steal a glance at the man's lower face. The strong jaws slowed over the munching of the fish sandwich while the dark brows furrowed.

Since when had he gotten interested in the copy-nin's face?

"You know, given that we've shared the same house for over a week now, I'm impressed that you've been so considerate, sensei."

As usual, the elite had to be too perceptive for his own smug good. While reigning in his initial desire to clunk the arrogant bastard with his plate, and hence letting the man know that he was hitting the target dead on, Iruka turned to give an innocently questioning glance at the grinning man, as if he didn't have the faintest clue on what the jounin was implying. More than anything, he was all ready to push the man to actually say the hinted words out loud. At least then he would have a more solid reason to excuse himself. "'Considerate' how, Kakashi-san? If I'm not mistaken the last three days do make the scale tilt towards a rather different definition when it comes to the way I've acted around you." What the defining words were, though, were best to be left unsaid.

"Maa, but seeing that you were knocked out for two out of those three days, I'd say that it evens the scores a bit." The jounin turned his head to give a cheeky grin at the chuunin next to him, but surprisingly he was greeted with suddenly blank features of the other man, and for a brief moment Kakashi wondered if he had forgotten to pull his mask back up. Since he could feel the cloth against his cheeks, the absurd option was swiftly ruled out, but it didn't help to explain why the younger man was suddenly becoming slightly paler than usual. As the man's mouth opened to form what seemed like a hesitant question, a very distant thought started to nag in Kakashi's mind, which usually meant that he had forgotten something important, and whatever it was, it had something to do with the sensei who was currently struggling to find suitable words.

"I...I slept for two days?"

The thick, tense silence that dropped on their shoulders made the ex-ANBU wince as the sudden illumination on the subject gave him a slap on his forehead. Of course. With all the strange things happening to them, he hadn't remembered to inform the teacher on the rather important facts concerning the previous days, and apparently the academy instructor had assumed that he had been out of it for only one day, just like last time. The jounin felt like punching himself, and the keen stare in the dark eyes made him consider giving the chuunin a permission to deliver the hit as well. Elite cell leader his pale ass, he was becoming as dense as one orange Uzumaki. With a small, silent sigh, Kakashi turned to fully face the other man, and gave the teacher a hopefully sympathetic look with his eyes. "...Yes, sensei. Two days."

Whatever he had been expecting as the response to his words, the pensive, almost absent hum that was heard from the man wasn't even hitting close to it. The dark eyes gave a couple of blinks before turning their focus on the tea cup resting in the immobile, tan hands, and as he took in the teacher's posture's gradual shift from energetic and strong to slightly uneasy and stiff, Kakashi could feel his whole body turning restless, his instincts fighting against the control he had on them as he resisted the urge to move closer to the thoughtful man. He didn't feel any tremors traveling on his skin at that moment, and he didn't feel the need to stir any more trouble in his system than he had already.

"..Your stance says that there's something else to it as well, Kakashi-san."

The unexpectedly strict notion threw Kakashi's inner battle through the fiery loop of the elite's priority scale, and the jounin snapped his attention back to the man sitting next to him, only to be greeted with steel-hard and sharply looking pair of dark brown eyes. Also judging from the way the teacher's mouth had set itself into a thin line crossing the man's scarred features, Kakashi knew he shouldn't hesitate too long with his answer.

He was given a subtle warning after all, just like the chuunin preferred.

The lightning user gave the mug in his hands a long look, and was grateful for the small pause the teacher granted him with in order for him to form the best reply for the man's inquiry. Knowing that his time was limited, Kakashi gave the young man a passing glance before turning the gray eye to watch over his beloved village. "..It's alright. I would be feeling on the edge too if I had found out that I had lost two days out of my life. Then again, after losing a few weeks, two days do feel quite insignificant." Not paying attention to the penetrating look he felt on the left side of his face, Kakashi went forward with his words. "Tsunade-sama said that your heart had stopped for a second, sensei. That's all she told me concerning the condition you were in." The barely concealed gasp of shock didn't go unnoticed. "..She also said to have found an anomaly in one sample."

"..An anomaly?" The baritone was quiet and careful, as if the teacher was afraid to set something off.

Kakashi gave a curt nod. "Yes. Apparently the trials for this mission aren't over yet." A pale hand was lifted to silence the bubbling question on the other's tongue. "She didn't say what it was, not even when I was visiting her just now, so I'm assuming that they're still working on it. She'll tell us when she knows for certain what it is." In other words, when she would have the time to do so. Jiraiya's letter had become their first priority the second they had understood what the codes had withheld, and should the situation start rolling forward sooner than expected, Kakashi knew what he had been signed for.

In that case there would be a rather long break in his sparring schedule with the sensei.

The softly murmured words he received spoke volumes. "..I see."

On the deceivingly light note, the following uneasy silence that patted their shoulders was an uninvited guest for both of them.

Accompanied with a hint of a shrug, Kakashi turned his attention once more on the silent chuunin next to him, and the lightly smiling pair of mismatched eyes nullified whatever words they both held on their uncharacteristically shy tongues. "I don't know about you, but I have a feeling that Tsunade-sama wouldn't take it lightly to see two of her soldiers sitting and chatting over an illegally long coffee break by the time they should have beaten themselves for three rounds already, Iruka-sensei."

They held each other from the shoulders as they were bent down from the waists and kept their backs straight while facing the floor beneath their shaking feet. The pale hands rested on the tan, broad shoulders that twitched and bunched under the jounin's firm grip, and the slightly panting, a bit flushed face of one academy teacher was directed towards the floor as the younger nin held his eyes closed against the sharp waves of pain that seemed to have fun at the man's expense more than was necessary.

The sadistic nature of their Hokage was clearly something to be both respected and feared in the future.

The only problem in their current situation when Kakashi was concerned wasn't that his hamstrings were clearly planning a mutiny or that he was quite tired due to a couple of nights being shot to hell, but that he had been struggling for good ten minutes to avoid embarrassing himself with a completely different matter. He could feel the licking jolts of electricity roam over his shoulders and upper back, the former Hound futilely trying to mentally block them from infiltrating his lower regions in order to restrain a certain area of erectile tissue from pointing horizontally in his sweatpants. Having to listen the quite appealing sounds coming from a man whose rather memorable body parts he had had the questionable joy to get closely acquainted with wasn't also helping to keep the insides of his boxers in check.

One more moan from the man and he couldn't promise anything.

Not that Iruka could help it, since the small, pinching pulses of electricity dancing on his nipples and naval area were making it harder to keep the blood from heading to the direction it wasn't supposed to go when one was meant to only stretch before getting one's ass whooped in the next twenty minutes. A low, pained moan floated through the air in the training room, and full lips were bitten and twisted as yet another groan escaped the sweating throat. The dazed eyes were squinted shut when a new shiver of electric current licked its torturous way up on Iruka's inner thighs and gave a positively scandalous petting to his buttocks. He could only hope that the older man took his actions and sounds being the result of mere muscle pain rather than the another kind of ache accumulating in his body.

On the other side of the outstretched hands, Kakashi was more than ready to kill whoever had written the cursed scroll that had become the fundamental outlines for their torturous mission when the familiar, alluring scent pushed itself up into his nostrils and made him choke a sneeze.

It was going to be a long day.

They observed each other from the opposite sides of the room, the fiery brown piercing the deceivingly bored gray, and heavy breathing echoed in the confined space that already carried a tangy scent of sweat in the air. The narrow rays of sunlight filtered in the room, the bright lines coloring both the tan and pale skin with yellowish tint.

Slowly, Iruka bent his knees while pulling his shoulders straighter and keeping his arms relaxed yet ready for either blocking or assaulting, whichever came first. By sliding his legs on the tatami, the teacher set himself facing the stilled copy-nin with his right side turned at the jounin, the dark eyes being kept on the masked man. Before he could launch his thought attack, though, a pale hand rose to halt his feet on the spot.

"Let's try an other method for a change, neh, Iruka-sensei?"

A perplexed blink met his suggestion. "Eh?"

"Maa, let's face it sensei, it's been ten minutes and neither of us have gotten even close to the other's bell. Not that I doubt that we couldn't do some damage from twenty feet away from each other, but since we have no weaponry in our use I could, with some level of certainty, declare that we're being as effective as nicotine patches are with Asuma," Kakashi said and gave a happy smile at the bemused teacher.

The masked man had a point, Iruka could give him that, but that didn't lessen the healthy doubt he felt while looking into the rather smugly curving mismatched eyes. The genius bastard had thought about something again, and concerning the past events, the teacher wasn't all too keen to probe the question of what it could be. He hadn't stayed alive this long by sticking his curios nose in every bait of information he was thrown at with.

Particularly so when it was done by an S-class assassin whose grin was becoming more and more visible underneath the dark mask. "Toss me your bell, sensei."

Now that was new. A cocky eyebrow rose slowly to challenge the demanding tone Iruka was given, and the mission room worker couldn't help keeping the lopsided, mischievous smirk from spreading wide on his face. "Saa, not that I wouldn't give you points for creativity in this case, but that sounded awfully like an attempt to win this match with a rather unusual way, Kakashi-san. Have you been talking with Shikamaru again?"

The quick, positively baffled blink that the jounin gave him was making it hard not to burst into gales of laughter, but as the day felt inclined to do its best to make their interaction as absurd as possible, a rumbling flow of chortles was suddenly heard beneath the stretching mask fabric on the jounin's face as the older man's stupefied look dissolved into happy laughter shaking the sweaty, pale upper body of the ex-ANBU. Seeing the other male lose it was the last nail on Iruka's slipping poker face, and for a moment the training room echoed with booming laughter mixing with the beeping of the alarm as the two highly trained and equally distressed, tired, mauled, harassed and hormonally confused men relieved some of that pent-up stress in a very un-shinobi-like manner. The Council would have a ball with their hysterical example of potential mental breakdown if the old geezers ever had been permitted to get a glimpse of their future mission report.

After collecting their breaths and Kakashi having shut the alarm, the two shinobi shared an amused look, the unsaid offer of truce being accepted by both parties. Quickly, Iruka opened the knot on the red thread and then tossed the bell to the older man, the chuunin observing with interest what exactly the other had in mind.

As he caught the bell in his pale hand, Kakashi gave a victorious smirk. "Maa-"

"It still doesn't count as a win, Kakashi-san," came the quick retort from the other man, even though the smiling eyes were humoring his efforts.

"Always having so high opinion on rules." A chuckle escaped the masked mouth as Kakashi tossed the bell lightly in the air before snatching it back into his hand and then tying it on the backside of his sweatpants.

"I work with thirty bloodthirsty pre-genins for five days a week. Give them even one unfairly achieved score and that'll be the end of me," Iruka chuckled and gave a dismissive shrug at the slightly worried look the other gave at him over the dark mask. Then he watched as the jounin securely attached the bell on his back, and the dark eyebrows rose on the tan forehead. "What on earth are you up to?"

A snort met the chuunin's question, and the mismatched eyes curved in delight. "Still not getting what I'm after, sensei?" And with that, without further warning, the jounin turned around and struck a pose with his hip thrust to one side. "Tell me, what would you say it looks like?" Kakashi's voice was all but innocent and the small silver bells chimed on the copy-nin's leisurely executed movement when the older male swayed his hips as the twirled around, the jounin being very much aware how his body looked like as he slowly set his weight on one leg and gave the other man a rather fetching version of a shinobi equivalent on contrapposto [2] when their eyes met once again. If the tan chuunin didn't catch on the blatant show of his physical traits, the man was either in heavy denial or completely oblivious to what he just did. Hell, he could have sworn to feel himself blush a bit at his obvious flirting. The only question was...what to do if the man caught onto him and acted upon the revelation? Then again, on a closer look the specific dilemma wasn't so unexpected. Kakashi still couldn't decide if the stunt the kohai had pulled with his interruption was better or worse for their situation that morning, because at that time he had been all too ready to grab the temperamental demon and make a good use of their kitchen counter as the seductive scent had taken over his nose yet again. Furthermore, also remembering how he had felt when he had spied on the interaction between the two men in the kitchen and had seen that damned little wooden box changing its owner before seeing the look that was given to him as the stupidly brave kohai had taken the liberty to intrude the volatile teacher's personal space, the masked lightning user had to admit that the conflicts he felt in his actions were only a logical conclusion from his current state.

When the compelling view of one firm and perfectly proportioned backside of the arrogant elite nin was registered in his internally caterwauling mind, Iruka found himself concentrating hard on keeping an eye contact with the man and forming words with his tongue in order to keep himself from licking provocatively his suddenly very dry lips. Kami that man did evil things to his self-restraint. "I have to agree, those pants do give you an extra pound, Kakashi-san." Iruka knew he was being cheeky again, and that insulting the other man was far from what he would rather be saying (preferably with his tongue pushed down to places even the man who invented the move of 'Thousand years of pain' would probably be shy about getting explored), but as the delicate nature of their morning collision had it, the academy sensei was ready to do all he could to throw the manipulative bugger off the scent before his dark desires could grow out of hands due to the mental images that were rapidly surfacing in his mind based on the lewd associations happening with the word 'pound'. Furthermore, despite the carnal lust promptly taking over a few sections of his brain, he could see the calculating look passing the gray eye, and it would take a dead fool to fall for that trap.

After all, he took pride in being a fast learner.

Kakashi had to admit, he was now very tempted to pull out the bathroom scale and prove the cheekily grinning little fucker wrong on his weight issues (he was doing just fine with his charts, thank you), but, truth to be told, he had been missing their routine of getting on each other's nerves on daily basis. "Hurting words, sensei." A countering grin tugged at his lips. It seemed that the man had chosen to ignore his flaunting and the chuunin might have gotten him there with that snippy jab, but he was going to make that smirk disappear from that scarred face by the end of the day. "But, as much as I'd like to continue this discussion with you, we still need to get some other results than my ideal weight from the day." With that the pale jounin took a defensive posture with his knees bent and fists lifted to cover his torso, the gray eye narrowing into a challenging smile. "Since now I have both of the bells in my possession, it's only logical that I would be the prey in this game, correct?"

Iruka gave a contemplating frown at that, grateful for the older man to tactfully steer the conversation away from the distracting dirty topics. So it was what he had suspected it to be. "It does seem like it, yes. But where exactly does that leave your battle strategy? If I'm the offensive, then does that mean that you fight only with the defensive styles?"

After a fleeting second of consideration, the jounin gave a small nod. "Something like that."

Iruka resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. He could almost taste the impending migraine. "But that's not how it goes in a real situation. The defensive can also turn into offensive if given the chance. Even the genins know that, at least in my class."

Curiously enough, the elite stayed unfazed by the apparent jab at his ego. "Then shouldn't you push me into a situation where that doesn't happen, neh?"

Iruka gave a suspicious frown. What was he being baited for now? "Well, true, but-"

"Then let's just give it a go and see where that leads, shall we?" If the jounin had meant the words as encouragement, the flat, almost exasperated tone that contradicted with the smiling eyes spoke for a whole another story.

Despite the crawling sense of alarm that took over Iruka's intuition on the copy-nin's seemingly flawless logic and the unsettling eagerness the man displayed for trying out the new method, a fully wide grin spread itself across his mouth. "What's this, the infamous chronic latecomer of thousand jutsus is getting impatient?"

"Maa. If you don't come after these bells in five seconds then I'll make you the prey, sensei," Kakashi said, and as the words were out of his mouth, he became also informed on how low purr he had dropped his voice all of a sudden. Ah hell.

On his side of the room, Iruka felt a tremor of heat travel down his body at the man's smooth voice, and the dark eyes narrowed into a hard look challenging the gray one. The probability for the jounin to catch onto his growing, albeit still dodgy lusting after the man was diminutive, but a valid concern nevertheless. If the man had noticed how his body had acted the previous hours, it was sure to bode more than just trouble for him. What was more alarming, though, was the increasing amount of flirting in which he seemed to be engaging himself when dealing with the one-eyed bastard. Sure, they had always hid the double entendres and bad pick-up lines in their tongue-lashing, but he was not that oblivious to not notice the blatant change in the nature of those usually harmless jabs, at least from his side. Regrettably, he also knew for certain that the older nin wasn't as inept in social communication as the man always conveniently made it to appear. He just had to play it for his benefit as soon as he had figured out what exactly counted as an advantage in their strange game. Pushing aside the swirling doubts and theories in his mind, Iruka gave the waiting copy-nin a sharp look. "Saa, let's see how you enjoy being hunted then, Kakashi-san."

The steel-hard glint in the gray eye was all he needed to permit his body to attack.

Light as a feather, the tan legs carried the chuunin to the awaiting opponent and with a fluid move, Iruka dove down and delivered a low windmill kick at the jounin, turning his spinning body on his hands and already calculating his next move, ready to block the possible cut from above should the man manage to fend off his kick. The flicker of a shadow and the chimes of the silver bells traveled above him as the man of thousand jutsus jumped over him and landed on the other side, the jounin already retreating to safer distance as Iruka stood gracefully back up and took a moment to assess the situation. A tan hand rose to rub a tickling spot on his clavicle area and discarded the dying jolts of electricity that were prickling his skin under the dark clothes. It appeared that it wasn't only the jounin's good evasive tactics that might give him considerable trouble during the present match.

Yet that didn't seem to be the reason why the elite didn't use the sudden pause to his benefit. "We didn't set the alarm, sensei."

He could only too well sympathize with the jounin's past homeroom teacher.

Holding in a tired groan at the snickering jounin, Iruka strode to the alarm, picked it up, set the time while giving a rather pointed look at the innocently smiling man and put the small device down leaning against the wall. As soon as the nimble hands let go of the ticking thorn on his side, the teacher's feet left the matted floor and he dashed at the other man, the chuunin knowing that he didn't have the luxury of time for what it came to their clashing elements. If he wished to avoid the impact that seemed to be somewhat unavoidable every time the older man was too close or touched him, the snatch for the bell had to be quick and precise.

Just like the copy-nin's kills were always said to be.

Kakashi watched the man coming at him, and as he carefully set his muscles to dodge the obvious strategy the other had decided to try on him, the copy-nin felt the short hairs on his neck stand on their ends for some reason. His body was warming up for something more than just a match, and the jounin was both reluctant and interested to see where that specific phenomenon would lead. He resisted the desire to open his Sharingan as he dodged away from the attacking teacher, sending the man diving past him and then following keenly how the lean legs fluidly continued the interrupted momentum to the right as the persistent chuunin decided to circle him once more. There was something in the other man that tried desperately to catch Kakashi's attention, but his mind had already been set into mission mode and he had narrowed his concentration down on the possible attacks the skilled man should lash out at him. His body was exhausted, which was something he grudgingly had to admit, since he hadn't slept much during the last couple nights for reasons he never thought he would encounter when it came to having a mission with the quick-tempered academy instructor. However, it was possible that being tired could also be related to the odd occurrences happening with his lightning throughout the day, so as much as he would have loved to jump for the first chance of getting a long nap and getting rid of the unwanted sensations distracting him all the time, he was also curious to see if he could manipulate the recently happened events for his own benefit. He had been trained better than to blindly follow the temptations of his body, after all. The only problem for the whole thing was, though, that due to the increasing incidents caused by their unpredictable elements, he could not be sure if the strangely changing sensations in his body were the result from that or from some completely different phenomenon when regarding his ambivalent relationship with the academic firecracker. He had gotten sexual reactions out of the younger man, true, but only in situations that he himself had initiated, furthermore by using his lightning. Therefore there was no saying that, whatever it was that he was experiencing, his currently surfacing feelings towards the other male would be reciprocated.

Facing the opponent without confirming the intel was considered the stupidest thing to do for a shinobi, and Kakashi wasn't one to act recklessly when it came down to his private life.

The shift of air caught the jounin's attention, and mostly on reflex his arms blocked yet another attempt of stealing the bell resting against the joint of his thigh and hip, and the narrowed eye met the stubbornly glaring ones for a passing second before Kakashi's focus reeled sideways as he turned quickly on his heels to shield the other bell from the hand that had snuck up on him from behind. It was time to get back on the track, apparently.

The copy-nin was spacing out again, Iruka was sure of it. Only this time he didn't see it necessary to let the given chance slip from him as he had the countless times before. It was an opportunity he had to take in order to gain the advantage, no matter how much he detested foul play. Once again being blocked, the chuunin hopped away from the older man and assessed his next move, his mood slowly growing frustrated as every single attempt had proven fruitless against the crafty jounin. The elite hadn't even hesitated in his defense, which, quite frankly, should have been obvious since the man was labeled as a genius. Besides, as the prick had showed him during the passing days, one needed only a sliver of chance in order to turn the tables. The last two traps the man had set for him to set off were saying enough.

The man knew exactly how to play his opponents to gain the upper hand.

A low growl escaped Iruka at the memory of how he had been humiliated and deceived by the cunning shinobi, and suddenly, as if the darkening thoughts had triggered a couple new nerve connections in his brain, Iruka felt his body to fill up with a foreign feel of flowing energy. After just a quick inhale, the teacher plunged himself again at the older man, his hurried pace bringing him almost nose to nose with the surprised-looking jounin, and in order to corner the man, he quickened his steps and rounded the man first from the other side, then the other, his sharply snatching hands searching for the possible openings in the other's defense. The older nin fell in step with him, dodging and dancing away from his hands every time he thought he could touch the glinting goals, the pale, well-trained body bending and twisting in ways the chuunin had apparently forgotten the other being capable of. Kakashi was more than just well-trained, he did acknowledge that fact, and wasn't certainly letting him go easy with his task of getting the bells. His left hand shot out to reach for the bell bouncing behind the jounin's back, but a cut from pale hands struck at his wrist from his blind point and forced him to pull back and then reach for the other bell while the jounin's defense was still concentrating on the other. Pushing away the hot pulses of electricity dancing on his skin on the spots where the other had hit, Iruka made a quick jab with his right at the bell hanging on the front of the jounin's pants, all the while forcing the older man to step backwards towards the training room wall. As yet another blocking hit smacked against his skin and a heated ache took over his groin, the dark-haired nin knew that he had reached his limits and thus retraced his steps in order to gain a longer distance for a quick catch of breath and to discard the sudden wave of want forming in his body, the scheming mind of his already scanning through tactics in a hurry to find a more suitable approach for the situation.

The match had lasted no more than eight minutes and he was already doubting the success of his strategy.

On the other hand, the strong, strange urge he currently had circulating in his central nervous system was...invigorating.

The sharp jingle of the silver bell cut through the air and Kakashi stared in open bewilderment at the tan hand that was holding one of his bells, and the victorious, almost feral grin stretching on the other shinobi's face. When had the chuunin even moved? Quickly, the jounin's frozen muscles set themselves back into action and the ex-ANBU ran a few steps away from the chuunin. While the scorching hot spike of arousal died from the right side of his hips, Kakashi pierced the smugly smiling younger nin with a stern look. The gray eye bored into the blazing brown, and a tremor of unease prickled his skin at the darkly burning intensity he could detect in the chuunin's gaze.

This was new to their game.

His ears caught on the sound of the running feet before his eyes even realized that the man had moved from his previous spot, and just narrowly the jounin managed to duck down to avoid the wide swing given by the sinewy, deadly hands. Kakashi served the man a low spin kick, making the assailant hop away from him and that way getting a second to gather his thoughts. Something had happened to the chuunin during the last three minutes. Something that was making the man faster and more accurate-

A roughly cutting kick sent him flying to the wall, and for a short moment, the air was cut off from his lungs. Through the loud thrumming inside his slightly hurting head, the jounin barely caught the words that were pointed at him from close proximity.

"Saa, Kakashi-san...didn't they teach you to pay attention at your opponent?" The mellow, warm baritone that caressed his ear had an odd edge to it, and before Kakashi could get a look at the chuunin whose breath he could suddenly feel against his masked face, a pair of strong hands grabbed a hold on his singlet. "Why don't you let me show you what happens when one sleeps in my class, bastard!" The voice of the teacher rose into an indignant shout, and before he understood what was happening, his vision tilted upside down as he was picked up and thrown over the other's shoulder.

The jounin spun in the air and landed on his feet, skidding along the matted floor, his mind whirling with valid options to either win or intercept the match that had suddenly taken a turn into something else. Not that his body agreed with the alarmed mind, as his muscles felt like melting with heat and the jolts of pleasure pinched every single crook there was in his lithe form, most of the sensations concentrating on the area where the teacher's hands had touched last. Without even thinking about it, the copy-nin suddenly realized him having plunged towards the assaulting man, hence cutting short the other's attack, then taken a bruising hold on the younger man's shoulders during their abruptly changing momentum and effectively forcing the struggling shinobi with the scarred back against the wall. As the men fell still over their suddenly changed positions, through the adrenaline that was making his mind hazy, Kakashi noticed his gray eye being only two inches away from the dark brown ones, his lips hovering only a breath's width away from their trembling counterparts, and his chest flush against the taut, tense body in his steel-hard grip. For half a second he could feel the heat from the other's body and the intoxicating scent from previous times to caress every exposed part of both his body and soul, all he would need was to lean in-

The lust-filled, albeit highly alarmed shout was all he managed to hear before a sharp blow of icy water hit him squarely on his upper chest, the power behind the impact feeling as if he had been hit by one of Kyuubi's tails, it making him fly a good twenty-five feet across the room from the tanned man before landing on his back with a loud crash on the matted floor and sliding a few feet further before stopping sprawled on the tatami mats.

Heavy panting echoed through the thick, stunned silence in the training room, and as he greedily gulped for air with his hurting lungs, Kakashi had a hard time to gather his focus on anything, the surrounding noises incomprehensible due to the high-pitched tinnitus [3] that had taken over his sensitive ears, and the angle of his own body feeling ridiculously absurd to him. Drunk from the lack of oxygen, the jounin painfully slowly managed to roll on his aching side and focus his eyesight enough to catch a glimpse of the chuunin sliding limply down against the wall, the pained expression on the younger nin's face taking away his focus from the flushed cheeks adorning the scarred features. The teacher slumped leaning heavily against the wall, and to Kakashi it looked like he wasn't the only one who was currently fighting on getting enough air into his lungs. It also seemed as if the panting chuunin was in some sort of pain, if the tight hold the man had onto his ribs was anything to go by. Kakashi couldn't blame him for that, though, as a violent jolt of sharp pain pierced his chest and made him curl into himself. A low growl of pain escaped his grimacing lips, but luckily the ache didn't carry the same level of agony as he had experienced during his first collapse. He might even survive through the day, then.

"...Ka..Kakashi-san..? Are...are you...alright..?" The quietly spoken, if a bit breathless words snapped his attention back to the other man still slumped against the wall. The teacher had opened his eyes, and the look in them was unreadable with a tense edge to it.

To be completely honest with himself, Kakashi felt a tiny flutter inside his gut at the sliver of concern he could detect in the younger man's words. After all that had just happened, the academy instructor was still prioritizing his well-being over the man's own? A small, self-depreciating smile stretched itself on the masked lips and the jounin's eyes curved in a manner he hoped to appear positive. "Maa, I've had worse fights." A quiet chuckle shook his aching shoulders, making him wince a bit. "Still alive, sensei. It takes more than a cold shower to get rid of me."

To his surprise, a relieved look passed over the other's eyes and the almost unnoticeable tension melted away from the heavily breathing man's posture. "Can you...stand up on your own...?"

Kakashi gave the given question a moment to consider the intention behind it. Deeming it way too troublesome to risk riling up the heaving sensei so shortly after such a strange match, Kakashi gave the man a curt nod. "I'll be fine. More importantly, how are you doing?"

The tiny blush that spread on the horizontal scar made the silvery eyebrows rise a bit. "It...might me a good idea to go to bed earlier today..I..I'm feeling quite tired, to be honest." A trembling hand rose to scratch the light pink nose, and the hesitant glance the chuunin shot to the side before giving the jounin another look was enough to tattle Kakashi that something was held from him concerning the other man's condition. "..I'll go and shower." Surprisingly swiftly, the fit body lifted itself on shaking legs and the dark-haired nin strode quickly to the bathroom doors, the odd actions only serving to increase Kakashi's curiosity on the oddly behaving man.

Now what was this, then?

As the sliding doors clicked shut after the fleeing teacher, the jounin shifted to lay on his back, the gray eye giving the ceiling above a contemplating look.

Neither of the men had registered the alarm that had been beeping for the past ten minutes.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit...

Trained hands trembled uncontrollably as they stripped the shivering tan body from the soaked training gear, pulling the sweaty and wet tank top roughly from covering the muscular chest before clumsily fighting with the sweatpants' strings. A small whimper left the fervently bitten lips as the hastily lowered fabric brushed against the eagerly pulsing hot flesh, causing a fit of tremors rake throughout the quivering muscles of the dark-skinned body. The moment both the slacks and the almost ruined boxers pooled around his ankles, Iruka stepped out of them with one foot and tried to kick them further away with the other in order not to get them any more soaked than they were already. Not having gained the full control on his rebelliously uncooperative muscles, however, the hastily executed move made him stumble in his steps and the tan body collided with the wooden shelves behind him, making the things kept on them to fall and clutter to the floor. Blindly, Iruka made a grab for the items in order to prevent them from falling, knowing that the silver-haired bastard could show up at any second if he made any odd noises, it being something he really couldn't afford right now.

Not until the major erection he presently sported had subsided, that is.

It had already been a pain to hide the proudly attentive length from the older nin's perceptive eyes as Iruka had fled to the bathroom, and the mere thought of the pale asshole seeing him in his current state was almost enough to make his strained nerves explode. What the hell had even happened out there? At first he was making a strategy to get the frigging bells and the next thing he knew he was trapped between a very solid and inviting wall and an attractive male body. The only thing he did recall was that something heavy and scalding hot had lurched inside him the moment he had felt the clothed lips close to his, and that he was suddenly knocking the jounin off him with his element. Again! He would die of dehydration if those things kept on happening to him!

Suddenly something liquid sploshed over his fingers that fumbled with the dropping objects, and as he hastily righted the fallen item and his spinning mind registered the soft click of the cap as it was closed, only then actually realizing what it was that he had spilled, his whole body froze on the spot and the breath was caught into his throat.

Greeting his wide eyes was a sight of three fingers glistening with the one and only oily substance that had made his life a living hell for the past few days.

Not only that, but it was also doing horrible things to his self-control at the very moment, the sudden burn of sinful, overwhelming pleasure tingling all over his wet hand and directing its attack straight to his already vivid groin section. Staring at the gleaming fingers in a loss of ideas on how to proceed from there, the tan throat swallowed thickly at the sight on how the drops of oil traveled down his palm.

..He should wipe it off.

Momentarily, a flash of electric blue light blinded his vision, and the full-lipped mouth had to bite on tan knuckles in order to smother a mewl that threatened to climb its way out of his throat as the chuunin's mind was briefly assaulted by heated memories that were shameless enough to mix themselves with his darkest wants that had lingered in the periphery of his currently crumbling mind, waiting to pounce the helpless victim in their weakest moment.

..He really should.

The trembling bottom lip was worried between the strong teeth and the dark-skinned man gave the closed bathroom doors a hesitating look, contemplating the utterly suicidal nature of his next move, but when the burning in his lower body only increased by the sinful sight of slick fingers presented to his dazed eyes, the sensei gave in to his relentlessly throbbing arousal. Quickly, the tan legs carried him under the shower head, but instead of turning the shower on, one arm was raised to lean the body's weight against the tiled wall and slowly, ever so slowly, the chuunin moved the oiled fingers to caress his backside while he took a wider stand on the tiled floor. The dark eyes slid shut on the scorching heat taking over his hips and Iruka had to bite his other hand's fingers to hold in the rising moan as the first digit circled his tight ring of muscles, teasing him into a frenzy when the sloppily smeared oil felt to set his skin on fire. A breathless gasp was heard in the tiled room as the first finger pushed inside him, sending images of silver hair and pale skin flash before Iruka's tightly closed eyes. Oh how good he had felt in his body as the jounin had pushed him against the wall, how the gray eye had bored into his very soul and made him want to do such dirty things to the man holding him... A stifled groan dropped from the lightly panting mouth, and Iruka swallowed a moan when the second finger joined its companion, his hand picking up speed with its penetrating movement.

..How close the masked mouth had been to his...

The hardened length leaked a drop of pre-cum from its slit that made him stare at his straining cock in hypnotized manner, the darkened head demanding attention he could only dream the witty, masked mouth giving to it, the lewdly speaking tongue licking and lathering his weeping erection, the deep, rumbling voice humming around him and shooting his mind to hell as he would watch the jounin suck him.

All it would have required was to lean in, to taste the scent of dark coffee that always teased him in the jounin's breath -

The room tilted beneath his shaking legs as the fingers brushed against the spot that made his vision dive head first into a clear blue wave, forcing him to search his vanishing balance by gripping the tiled wall desperately with his other hand as the other pleasured him beyond common sense. The only problem was, no matter how deep he reached, no matter how hard he pushed, he kept only teetering on the edge, missing the peak of satisfaction whenever he felt the tightening in his groin telling that he was close. Why didn't it go away? Why wasn't it sufficient?! A frustrated growl erupted from the taut, broad chest and the movement of the fingers became more frantic, more passionate, the panting mouth silently praying his iron control to just let go for once as the dazed mind of the chuunin sensei drifted into dirty fantasies involving one remarkably well endowed copy-nin and his willing tan ass, the feel of his fingers morphing into something longer and thicker sliding in and out of his greedy passage. The supporting hand was pushed off the wall and lowered to slide over his generously leaking shaft, earning a rumbling purr resounding through his arching body as his head fell back, the swollen lips opening into a silent moan of ecstasy as the first, firm strokes caressed his twitching cock-

The dazed, dark eyes snapped suddenly out of their blue-tinted haze when Iruka's ringing ears caught on the sound of footsteps stopping just behind the bathroom doors that led to the training room, making freezing coldness of fear wrap itself around his skipping heart as the all too familiar presence washed over his over-sensitive skin.

No, no, no, not now-!

It was also at that second that his thrusting and stroking fingers found the right spots all at the same time.

Oh kami - sama- !

Carefully, the sliding doors opened and Kakashi gave the bathroom a testing peek. The jounin had spent a few moments laying on his dripping puddle of scattered thoughts on the matted floor, the vigil genius mind trying to find him valid points for entering the bathroom after the chuunin without getting kicked out in a quarter of a second. Or jumping the man's bones the very moment when he would see the mouth-watering body. Either way, the situation required delicacy he knew he possessed as much as Kotetsu and Izumo did whenever the two numbskulls were in the same room, so after a couple of minutes spent pondering on the dilemma, the jounin had decided to rely on the unbeatable yet rarely used strategy of infiltration and intelligence gathering they were all taught when learning the secrets of their sneaky profession.

Sometimes the direct approach was better than the vague one.

Some even stayed alive to tell the tale after doing that.

The sound of shower greeted his keen hearing and the gray eye gave a quick look at the shower stalls, spotting the target of his unconventional tactic washing himself with vigor that he didn't think anyone else except Gai could perform without hurting themselves fatally in the process. Then again, there were only so many surprises one man could handle in one evening. Silently, Kakashi stepped into the room and shut the sliding doors behind him. The pale hands peeled off his once again wet clothes and then the jounin pulled on the showering mask, noticed the haphazardly discarded clothes of the other man, quirked an eyebrow at the various objects he was fairly sure that didn't belong on the floor, and then headed to his shower stall while giving an appraising side-eye at the rather fetching-looking broad back, feeling a tug of heat tickling his gut as he allowed his gaze to wander a bit lower. However, the air around the showering chuunin felt a bit off for some reason, and while he turned the faucets, the ex-ANBU could swear that his nose caught on a sliver of some odd yet familiar, muffled scent wafting in the steamy air. Now why did that scent put an alarm ringing in his head?

"I thought Tsunade-sama told us to take separate shower turns, Kakashi-san."

The irritated note in the said words made Kakashi glance at the shadowy figure on the other side of the opaque and steamy glass wall, and a lopsided grin splayed itself on the pale, hidden lips. "Maa, indeed she did, but you wouldn't be so cruel as to risk your teammate to catch a cold in his wet clothes, would you, sensei?" The aggravated muttering was more than welcomed to him. It seemed that he wasn't going to be kicked out of the shower. Yet at least. The voice of the older nin took on a more challenging note in his next words. "Besides, after what you did to me a couple of days ago I hardly see it appealing to offer you any more opportunities to disrupt my showers, sensei."

A dry snort met his musings. "I won't participate in an already doomed conversation as you know it very well, Kakashi-san. The days in the mission room should have taught you that."

"Ah, but knowing and obliging are two very different things, sensei, you of all people should've learned that already." Kakashi couldn't help keeping the sly smile off his face when the glass wall gave a miserable gonk as the other's fist lightly smacked the smooth surface, leaving a faint hit mark on the moist wall between them. Time to charge. "Fair enough, how about explaining to me what happened just now?"

The stricken silence that greeted his question was almost screaming in his ears through the shower's white noise.

"...What do you mean what happened?" Feeling his heart halt with a heavy thump, Iruka couldn't believe his rapidly heating ears. He could have sworn to have washed the evidence of his release sufficiently away before the unnervingly observant jounin had entered the room, moreover using a good amount of both shampoo and shower gel should have covered the musky scent from the masked nose. The dark eyes gave a withering scowl at his slowly subsiding erection, just daring his physiology to start a second round while the other man was still only a couple of feet away. He was already having his hands full on keeping himself from not reaching down there and succumbing to the nagging feeling of giving just a couple more strokes to finish himself off properly. That and also keeping both his feet and imagination from wandering to the other side of the glass wall.

"I'm referring to what happened during the match. Your fighting had been off for the whole day, but suddenly it all seemed to change somehow. Did you notice any oddities concerning your previous performance?"

Now Iruka felt completely lost with their current topic. Finally, the minuscule portion of his brain that wasn't absorbed with the dilemma of misplaced hormonal hurricane, set the light on in the other sections of his mind and kindly reminded him of the past few hours that had happened before he had went and written his name on Tsunade's black list of medical equipment abusers. After his mind was picked up from the gutter where it had fallen, the chuunin felt a dark, tense tic on his brow. The genius sure could pick his moments to question his team members. Then again, at least he now knew where they stood for the time being. "I have no clue on what happened, Kakashi-san." Technically, that wasn't a lie. "I guess my element decided to have some fun on our expense." To Iruka's dismay, that was more than just a high possibility at the current moment.

Kakashi gave a frown at that. He had suspected as much, with his element being an active pain in his ass for the whole day, but the answer was still too vague for his taste. "Could you describe it a bit better? Anything that could have caught you attention?" Scrubbing the shampoo on his scalp, the jounin closed his eyes and listened to the pensive humming coming from the younger man's side. The teacher was seemingly reluctant to share his observations with him, and he couldn't judge the man for that. The man had all the reasons to be careful when dealing with him after what he had caused to happen to the chuunin's body. Although, Kakashi did understand the teacher's problem in voicing out the occurred event as well. Whatever it was that had happened in the passing few minutes was something neither of them had anticipated, for that they both seemed to agree, but the surfacing questions that had hit him on the head as he had laid on the damp tatami were also making his whole being restless as he tried to find a suitable way to word out the actual problem he was facing.

How exactly did one broach the subject of being aggressively rejected after subconsciously trying to molest an other male against the nearest wall?

Hell, with all things considered, Kakashi wasn't even sure if the sudden urge to slant his lips against the other's had even been unintentional enough to be labeled as subconscious. He could pretty much guess that if his libido had had anything to say to it, it would have all but screamed for wicked intentions towards the man he had been holding for just a moment in his grip.

Iruka shook his head, the brows furrowed in deep concentration. Now that he knew what the older man was after, he could participate better in their game of revealing things without revealing himself. "I'm afraid I couldn't grasp it so well to distinguish any specific features in it. It was an elemental occurrence, for that I'm sure. At least that's what I can remember of it." A tan hand was lowered from his washed hair to twist the taps while the chuunin struggled to dig out more details from his chaotic memories while at the same time reminding himself of their past situations and holding his tongue on certain issues he wanted to sort out by himself before literally offering any more of his ass to the bastard. "Then it all just..I don't know..somehow intensified, if one should use a word for it."

The chuunin's choice of words snatched Kakashi's full attention. That was a rather unusual way of putting it compared to the other possibilities when describing the battle situations. " 'Intensified' ? "

A tan finger rose to scratch the nasal scar, and Iruka gave the showering shadow next to him a sidelong glance, counting the steps he needed to reach his towel while preserving the illusion of collegial modesty. If there even was anything left for him to maintain after what he had learned concerning the past days, that is. "Yes. Intensified. As if I had more chakra in my use all of a sudden, to put it simple." Except that it clearly wasn't chakra that had made it happen. Gingerly, he made the first steps towards his towel hanging on the rack on the opposite wall.

A thoughtful hum resounded from Kakashi's throat as the speculative words from the younger man kicked in a few gears in his head. There could be a chance of having their chakra involved in this? The gray eye narrowed on the barrel of possibilities that was ignited in the perceptive nin's mind. "What do you think about the blue color?"

With a smooth move of trained hands, Iruka toweled his hair dry and then wrapped the towel around his narrow waist, the teacher letting out a quiet sigh of relief as he wasn't any longer in the immediate danger of exhibiting more than he wanted to the older man. Safe for now. Then the dark eyes gave the showering man behind his back a glance through the gleaming white tile next to his head. "The blue color?"

Giving a nod he knew the other would sense, Kakashi closed the shower and raked the pale hands through his wet mane. "If I remember correctly, that's the only connecting thing that we both desribed to Tsunade-sama when she asked about our first encounter with the elements, and if I'm not mistaken, that same color is also connected to the other stuff circulating in our pathways." The former ANBU kept his keenly looking eye on the wet tiles in front of him, not really sensing the cool air brushing against his light-toned skin as he was currently concentrating on the new ideas that popped up in his mind. What was it that Tsunade had said about the possible triggers...?

The widening, dark brown eyes kept their focus on the bleary reflection on the tile's flat surface, and Iruka resisted the urge to slap his head as the realization dawned on him. Despite using the possibility of chakra as a bait to lure the jounin off his scent, the man was actually hitting a point there. "...That's true." Abruptly, without giving his brain enough time to tell him why it really wasn't such a good idea, Iruka spun around on his heels as his mind's archives burst into life and he started to browse trough every odd event that had led them to their present situation. "How had we missed that before? That's an obvious point we should-"

The shocked stare from the gray eye wasn't alone with its contradicting feelings.

While preventing an internal explosion from happening in his limbic system, Iruka turned his back to the bare-assed jounin, hoping fervently that the pale man took the hand that rose to take a firm hold on the bridge of his nose as a gesture of distress and embarrassment rather than an attempt to call off the threatening nosebleed. There was only so much physical temptation a man could handle after coating his inner walls with the chakra-infused massage oil. The skin on his overheating neck prickled at the keen look he felt on his stiff, scarred back, and the sudden flare of an electric current traveling up his calves made his muscles twitch in agitated manner. This wasn't good. He had to redeem his position before the perceptive asshole could start thinking that there were more things happening with him than his element acting all wild and irresponsible. "Could that also share a connection with the anomaly you said that Tsunade-sama found in our samples? Shouldn't we contact her about this?" An internal curse was hissed at the hesitant tone in his voice. If the former ANBU hadn't realized what was happening to him, Iruka was sure that the man would now be able to connect the dots. Sensing the man's body approach him from behind, a sullen, heated ache started to take over his restless muscles despite the desperate attempt to keep his feelings at bay. It seemed that his body didn't comprehend why it wasn't given the permission to turn around and start the second round with the exquisite, pale body it could feel stopping behind the stiff, tan back. The dark eyes narrowed their focus on the wall of white tiles expanding in his field of vision, and the strong jaw set itself into a tight grit. He would not yield to the pale asshole, no matter how much his drooling mouth appreciated the idea of getting on his knees on the wet and cold bathroom floor.

Fire and iron.

Fire and iron...!

Out of nowhere, a pale arm stretched over the tan shoulder, sending a sigh of minute tremors tickling over the damp skin, and grabbed the second towel that hung on the rack on the wall in front of the tense chuunin. "Maa. That's certainly something to consider, sensei." The smooth, low voice resounding from behind his back was as teasing as ever, but felt to withhold a layer that sounded more like a shinobi concentrating on solving the new problems in their mission parameters rather than a man being set out to seduce his mission partner. Iruka's keen ears picked the sounds of hair being dried up and the towel being draped over the muscular frame, and as the other's heavy presence vanished from his skin, the chuunin risked a glance at the retreating, pale back. The map of faded scars expanded over the taut muscles, and the broad shoulders carried on a posture of an experienced fighter. "We can contact her tomorrow, see if she has any news and if we could help her with this bit of information. Have a good night." With that, the bathroom door to the corridor opened and the jounin stepped out of the bathroom, and when the click of the closing door reached his ears, Iruka let out the breath he had been barely able to hold in.

The sudden opening of the door was almost enough to make him jump out of his skin, and the wide-eyed chuunin sensei spun to meet whoever it was that had tried to make him lose a few years out of his life. The brightly smiling pair of mismatched eyes was an unexpected and unnerving sight to greet him from the crack of the door, and Iruka already set himself ready for a some kind of confrontation.

"Ah, by the way. Nice hair, sensei." And with a suggestive wink, the jounin closed the door once more.

Stunned, Iruka stood still in complete silence that took over the ascetic bathroom. His hair? As his ears picked up the older man's movements in the house around him, a tan hand was tentatively raised to run through the wet hair, searching the reason for the jounin's offhand comment. Iruka was sure that he had washed it, he had never before even used that much shampoo as he now had in order to discard the smell of sex that had felt like having burned itself onto his skin, so having the subject of his confused feelings comment on his disheveled hair was more than just baffling to him. The wave of warmth that had punched him on his stomach at the wink he had been given wasn't also helping in putting his thoughts back on track, and a troubled sigh left the full-lipped mouth. He was attracted to the man, that much he had already figured, but the chance of it happening due to his misbehaving element rather than him getting emotionally attached to the eccentric assassin was a possibility he didn't know how to approach, moreover getting enough courage to go through all the other facts that were making him doubt if he really had what it took to complete the mission that had been entrusted to them by their Hokage.

Nor did he expect to face the fact that he had forgotten to take off his hair-tie while washing himself.

His forehead would learn to despise the hard surfaces of their household.

Chapter Text

When two different weather fronts collide, it usually results in a storm of some kind, with more or less severe consequences to the ones getting caught in it. The residents of Konoha had grown accustomed to many different weather conditions during the years, both the civilians and shinobis knowing the joys and pains of the changing climate. Only when the differences on the professional level were compared, the shinobi population had to become acquainted with far more differing situations opposed to their own regional weather; from the sandstorms in the vast deserts surrounding Sunagakure to the freezing winter season in the Land of Iron; all of the extreme conditions they had to face in order to carry out their missions, and, hopefully, survive to tell the others about their wet, hot and irritatingly itchy adventures.

The amount of worry for their children's appropriate clothing was never in par between the civilian parents and the ones who did their gruesome everyday duty for the village.

With a slow, bleary blink the dark eyes peeled open and cast a tired look at the loudly drumming ceiling above the sleepy man's body. The distant crack of lightning rumbled through the numb, groggy haze in the awakening man's mind, and while he felt his senses to gradually become more alert and sharper, Iruka realized that it was darker than normal at that time of the morning. At four-forty, to be precise, if the dull ache in his lower back was any hint. His body seemed to continue working like clockwork on some matters, even though he could happily live without some certain features.

With that passing thought in mind, the brown, sleepy eyes swept over the other, soundly sleeping form that laid sprawled on the second futon in the shared bedroom, the subtle rise and fall of the darkly clothed chest being the only indicator on the jounin's state of awareness. Or peaceful sleep in this case.

Figuring that his body was now sufficiently awake for him not to cuddle his pillow any longer, Iruka gave a silent yawn while the strong arms were stretched up towards the dark ceiling, and then the same hands quietly peeled the warm, thick blanket off his half-naked body. Without a sound, the tan hands searched and grabbed for a dark, long-sleeved shirt and then pulled it over the brown-haired head, the tangled mass of long tresses pointing in every direction as they caught on some static electricity when they brushed against the coarse cotton. Quickly, the nimble fingers ran through the thick hair before it could have plotted its rebellion any further, and then secured the strands under the tight, plastic hair-tie, giving them no other choice than to point their ends up high in their passive-aggressive submission. After taming his hair, Iruka's dark eyes set to find the lacking pair of training pants, but when the memory of where the man had seen them last hit the now fully functional mind of the chuunin, the horizontal scar experienced a passing wave of heat.

There was no way he would re-visit those particular memories the first thing in the morning.

Then, the perceptive eyes fell on a hefty bundle of unsorted clothes that seemed to be just recently washed, the heap of dark and light fabrics being neatly folded and them being put next to the sniffling jounin's mattress. A warm, lopsided smile snuck on the full lips, and the dark-skinned young nin rose ever so carefully in a low squat, cautious not to wake the older man, before making his sneaky way to the pile of clothes. The strong, boxer-clad legs stopped in a stable crouch by the end of the ex-ANBU's bed, and after the dark eyes didn't detect any traces of possible traps being set on the clean clothes (since he wasn't one to blindly trust the logic of jounins when it came to household chores), the silent hunt for the pants began with the booming thunder being the chuunin's only accomplice.

Swiftly, his fingers went through the different types of fabric and sorted through the clothes in their search for a particular item, finally finding what they were looking for as the smooth, thick textile brushed against them. With trained ease which the teachers were known to possess after helping their students to find their missing things in the afternoon chaos, Iruka confirmed that the found garment was his, unfolded the pants and then stepped into them without a sound. As he pulled them up to cover his lower body, the chuunin gave the sleeping jounin a cautious glance to see if the other had stirred during his trouser hunting. Seeing that the masked man was still happily snoozing against his new pillow, the mismatched eyes being firmly closed beneath the silver bangs and a tiny damp spot being currently formed close to the masked mouth, the teacher gave himself a silent promise to sort through the laundry after the older man had woken up, and snuck out of the bedroom in order to carry on with his mundane morning routine.

The strike of lightning echoed in the dimly lit corridor, and as a bright flash illuminated the silent kitchen for just a second before the deep roar followed it, the chuunin squinted at the storm roaming through the streets. The hisses and gurgles of the small water boiler filled the otherwise electrified silence, and the melody of pouring rain mixed with the boiling water, it creating a rather vivid dialogue between the two kinds of one and same element. Gently, the small, shellac-varnished box was opened, and after a short moment of consideration, a pouch of mint tea was picked out to be opened and some of its content was measured in a small metal sieve. The soft click of the boiler wasn't compatible with the loud boom of another lightning bolt, but that didn't stop Iruka from pouring the prepared hot water into his cup and then dip the dry leaves into their steaming bath. A slightly dreamy, if a bit frustrated sigh dropped from his lips at the sight of the floating tea leaves.

The things he would do for a hot bath right now.

The sudden gust of strong wind rattled through the corners of their house, and an abrupt, odd series of loud bangs snapped the academy teacher out of his innocently wet daydreams. Quickly and with his whole body being instinctively set on full alert, Iruka left the cup on the counter and strode to the kitchen door leading to their terrace. Cautiously, the teacher opened it and gave a suspecting look outside, and following the trail of the noise, he saw the cause for the banging sound that was violating the thundering silence he had been enjoying. The sliding doors separating the training room from the terrace had been left open after their last match, and the wooden barriers were getting now caught in the aggressive swirls of storm they had upon them and hence were moving restlessly in their wooden rails and hitting against each other. Ignoring the coldness and the irritating dampness that rushed for the first chance it got to get under his clothes, Iruka walked briskly to the clattering doors and pulled them securely closed.

As the doors slid shut, he found himself looking through the closing gap at the pair of other shut doors leading to their bedroom. A sliver of strange unease fluttered inside him, it making him pull the hefty wooden frames together with more force than needed and wincing at the loud complaint they gave for the mistreatment. While walking back to the kitchen, Iruka also casually noted that strolling barefoot on wet and cold wooden planks might not be the smartest thing to do in such a weather, and catching a cold wasn't going to make their mission any easier. Especially if he would end up being taken care of by the man he the least wanted to let lay any pale hands on him at the moment...As soon as that particular thought had surfaced in the dark-haired head, the broad shoulders became stiff, only to droop afterward accompanied with a silent huff in a manner what usually counted as either confessing something or admitting defeat when it came to the non-verbal communication between shinobis.

Unseeing, the narrowed eyes stared at the steeping tea on the counter.

" Oh, and Iruka-kun, watch out for any thunder, will you."

A troubled, more pronounced sigh left the frowning man, as the tan hands removed the used sieve from the cup before lifting the warm liquid to the slightly pouting lips, and the chuunin's sense of smell took its fill on the fresh, minty aroma. A strike of lightning rumbled just a few blocks away, and Iruka could feel the minuscule tremors travel beneath his cold feet when the ground trembled on the harsh impact. After having a couple of sips, the tan man leaned against the counter, the dark eyes blank and absent while the sharp ears picked out every single nuance in the melodic cacophony left in the air by the current storm. After a moment of stilled silence, as the violent echo of the electrically charged bolt had died away, the deft fingers opened the golden-brown tea box once more, and gingerly picked out a parcel that wasn't originally put to the said box by its giver. Then, as if being slightly scared what might happen when he said it out loud, the quietly whispered, hesitant words met the loudly roaring storm thundering above his beloved village while Iruka gently traced the covered sharp edges of the small package with his fingertip.

"...I'm afraid that's a bit too late, Tsunade-sama."

For a jounin to wake up, certain precautions were always present. One hardly forgot the vigorous training they had to go through when it came to the art of sleeping while on duty: first they had to learn how to fight against severe sleep-deprivation for many weeks' worth, then they usually were forced to experience the joys of taking naps that lasted only ten minutes and always ended with a simulated enemy attack, all of that resulting in a three weeks' phase of trying to remember how it felt to actually sleep and see dreams, while struggling to keep all senses alert at the same time. The training for waking up was even worse than it was with the sleeping exercises.

And that was just the jounin training.

Stretching out with his senses, Kakashi lazily mapped the room around him, the man not surprised yet slightly relieved to find out that nothing had changed in the passing hours. His futon was where it was meant to be, he could feel the dark-haired demon's presence from a safe distance, and his Icha Ichas were still located on the same spot by his head. Everything seemed to be in order, which meant that it was safe to open his eye and let the world know that he was awake.

It was at that moment when his keen senses picked the things he had briefly missed.

Not only was there an even pattern of breathing coming from the chuunin's side, it clearly announcing that the man was in deep sleep, but it was accompanied with a rather interesting mixture of scents now wafting to the masked nose.

Mint.

Eggs.

Fish.

...Miso soup.

Why did he smell miso soup the first thing in the morning? His endless curiosity being now efficiently provoked, the jounin turned on his side to face the other man, the loud crack of lightning conveniently masking the already soundless movement, and gave a better look at the quietly snoozing sensei who was oddly enough already fully dressed yet happily curled up and knocked out on the second futon in the room. The dark brown, lively eyes were closed, and the man's lips were parted ever so lightly to allow the faint wisps of breath pass between them as the light snoring filled the calm ambiance that was present in the room. The posture of the broad, darkly clothed shoulders was peaceful and relaxed, and the stillness of both the man's muscular hands and legs indicated towards inner calmness that made the silvery eyebrows furrow a bit. With all things considered, based solely on what he was seeing, the academy instructor looked like there had been no weird clashes with their elements, no violent pass-outs with near-death experiences and no irrational sexual situations happening to them in the past few days. If he hadn't known better, Kakashi could have thought that he was currently staring at a slumbering Nara. Or an Akimichi, if the amount of plates the jounin suddenly spotted being piled next to the man's bed was anything to consider. Either the teacher had been starving or the man had merely ignored the fact that usually they were given only one stomach when their physical bodies were concerned.

Then again, Kakashi's metabolism seemed to only agree with the perceived man's appetite, making the jounin briefly wonder if his body had suddenly made some sort of secret pact with the younger man's own as a low yet loud grumble erupted beneath his covers. With graceful stealth the former Hound was expected to possess, the pale shinobi crawled out of his bed, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and slunk to the bedroom door. Carefully the strong, deadly hands were placed on the door handle, the nimble fingers curling around the cool metal like they were trained to, and showing the skill he was known for, the ex-ANBU captain opened the door without a creak. The bare feet left no sound as they stepped to the corridor, and the soft click of the closing door was drowned into the howling wind that circled the light gray house on its way through the neighborhood. Calmly, Kakashi strolled to the kitchen, the gray eye scanning the wooden counter top for any signs of a domestic chuunin who had obviously spent a couple of hours awake already while the copy-nin had snuggled deeper into his blanket. The tan man's tendency to wake up when the jounin could have claimed the time to be still closer to midnight than morning was beyond Kakashi's comprehension. Then again, so did the teacher give him disapproving looks whenever he chose to take a tiny nap before having yet another round of bell chasing (covering his smugly smirking eyes with the Icha Icha had of course nothing to do with that).

As he found no pots or kettles in the vicinity of the stove, the jounin opened the fridge to give a scanning peek inside. The sight of a large pot and several bowls covered with small plates greeted the gray, narrow eye, and for a brief moment the Sharingan user had to wonder if he had missed some information about them having guests for the day. Either that or the chuunin had set them a personal challenge concerning the amount of nutrition for the morning.

Speaking of challenges.

Accompanying the drumming rain that happily pounded against their roof tiles, the pale fingers tapped the smooth fridge door's surface as the awakened mind of the masked genius drifted to what was his current mission with the currently sleeping micro-managing devil. It was almost two weeks ago when the men had started their shared living under Tsunade's instructions, and during that time there had happened more mishaps than ever before between them. Given, their previous encounters had never lasted more than it took either for him to rile up the temperamental man or for them to beat the shit out of each other in the training field, so it should have been obvious to understand the possibility of change to happen in their interaction.

Nevertheless, for the change to carry such an extraordinary nature was something that Kakashi was sure he had never even dared to imagine. The past days had proved his thoughts both about himself and the young chuunin wrong on so many things that, for the first time in his life, the infamous tactic genius and the legendary man of thousand jutsus found himself at a loss with his strategy. After a moment of heavy silence, as if the silver-haired man was frustrated with either himself or the problem he was suddenly being thrown at with, a silent huff left the masked lips as the gray, narrow eye darkened into a more tormented look.

His situation being what it was, there was now the problem in discerning when was it that he had even started to view the teacher in a way that he had suddenly found himself doing, since there had never been a question of their relationship becoming something else than just friendly fighting between them. Furthermore, not having a clear view on the role his element was presently playing in the whole mess wasn't really tilting the scale for his emotional benefit either. If this was all caused by some meager electric malfunction happening in his body instead of him actually starting to like the tan firecracker on a more psychological level, it wouldn't do well for either of them should the jounin act on an impulse, and in the worst case scenario destroy all what they had carefully built up so far.

Not that living with that decision was going to be any easier, since after realizing the possibilities of the subtly hidden layers in their discussions and then seeing the round, tight ass wrapped in his boxers, it had somehow become much more difficult to reign in the distracting sensations that were turning his gut upside-down all the time. Admittedly, he had been tempted to make the younger man scream his name against the tiled wall last night when their eyes had met in the bathroom and the jounin had suddenly found himself not only getting his second good eyeful on the nicely sculpted tan torso and a pair of dark nipples, but also presenting his own nude body in its full glory to the younger man. Even for a second time, to top it all off. What had made him hold back wasn't the chuunin turning the scarred back at him, by heavens the temptation for corrupting the other man had been hitting the top scores the moment he had seen the shadows of the hidden curves under that innocent white towel (as if it hadn't been sufficient already to see the finely shaped buttocks shift in his underwear and tease his groin from close range), but the odd aura that had taken over the teacher's whole being on each step Kakashi had taken towards the strangely tensing nin. It was not an open invitation that he had sensed curling around the man's presence.

It had been a sharply cutting blade of defiance.

"If you keep the fridge open any longer we might as well have a small simulation on fighting the enemy in the Land of Snow, Kakashi-san."

After a stilled second, Kakashi had to remind himself that as much as his assassin's instincts were screaming at him over the many times they had been encouraged to treat everything at hand as a weapon, the parsnip he was currently contemplating hardly offered him any more credibility in the lower rank's eyes should he fling it at the man. "Maa, good morning to you too, sensei," he said into the fridge while ignoring the feel of an unmistakably unimpressed stare burning his neck, and while the rush of adrenaline died out of his veins, the ex-ANBU put his pale hands in good use by picking a few bowls from the chilled shelves and placing them on the counter. "I see that you've been busy."

An affirming hum reached his ears, and while he removed the plates covering the bowls and took a look at the variety of delicacies he was presented with, Kakashi sensed the younger man move to stand between him and the fridge. Out the corner of the gray eye, the masked man observed the other's hands put a pile of dirty plates into the sink and then glanced shortly at the man squatting down and digging out the rest of the cooked food for the older nin's perusal.

"I made us some soup if you like, Kakashi-san," the slightly raspy baritone of the chuunin said amidst the sounds of clinking plates and scooping spoons. The man's tone of voice was casual and calm, playful even, but somehow much more charged than the lightning bolt that hit nearby and shook the floor beneath their feet.

"I noticed, yes, but I think that I would save that for later. Thank you, though, for the offer, Iruka-sensei," the copy-nin said and gave a small nod. Then the smiling mismatched eyes were turned to the teacher who shrugged and placed the hefty pot back onto the fridge shelf. "Although you make me wonder if I should be expecting someone to drop by. We've never had this much to eat for breakfast."

"No," a small yawn stretched his jaws when the young teacher stood back up and closed the fridge before rolling up the sleeves of his dark shirt, and Kakashi quirked an eyebrow at the tired manner how the tan hand rose to rub the dark eyes. "I merely thought that we could benefit from having something warm to eat, considering the appealing weather we're having." As if feeling pleased that its efforts were noticed, the thunder decided to tickle the ground near their house with another lightning bolt. After placing the plug in the sink, Iruka turned the tap on and filled the dimly lit space with the sound of running hot water. "Besides, even though you're on a mission it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy good food, Kakashi-san." The look in the dark eyes gave nothing away as the quietly standing man kept his focus on the filling sink, but the tone used in the teacher's words was enough to hint the ex-ANBU captain that the bright-minded chuunin had been able to deduct how little he had eaten in the past days when they hadn't been able to enjoy each other's company.

While testing out the marinated vegetables with his hidden taste buds, Kakashi could feel the short hairs on his neck stand in rigid attention at the precisely enunciated words, and the jounin briefly remembered how things usually turned out for him when that particular undertone became apparent in their discussions. Thus, like any other jounin who had been unfortunate enough to trigger that particular nerve in the sensei's system, Kakashi went for the well-known move to save the remnants of his pride from the strict lecture he was sure to get for not looking after himself. He changed the subject. "How are you feeling today, Iruka-sensei?" The tap was closed, and while taking a bite of his freshly made sandwich, Kakashi heard the plates being moved around in the hot water after the washing liquid was added to it. The chuunin was clearly torn between continuing the surfacing lecture mode or dismissing the current topic and taking the offered diversion. The quiet sigh was enough of an answer for the jounin to relax his tensed shoulders.

"I already contacted the Hokage Tower about the matter we talked about yesterday, but Tsunade-sama was currently unavailable for an audience. They said that she'd come to check up on us as soon as the other matters are dealt with. I also ordered some food ingredients to stock up the kitchen, as well more coffee for you since that's the last of it what you have waiting in the coffee maker. Just put it on if you want to make some." While Kakashi confirmed the alarming news concerning his dark-roasted addiction and put the tiny percolator on for brewing himself the last, much needed cup, behind his back the dish brush commenced the scrubbing on the used utensils. "Other than that, I consider the situation being stable at the moment." The short burst of rinsing water disrupted the low rumble coming from a distant lightning bolt. "How about you, Kakashi-san?" Based on the leveled voice of the other man, Kakashi was tempted to bet that the teacher wasn't really interested in his answer and being polite just to humor him.

Discarding the temptation to pinch the younger man's ass-cheeks with his lightning for the chuunin being so blatantly blunt with his indifferent attitude, the copy-nin gave a meek smile on the masked face despite knowing all too well that the other man behind his back missed it as he kept his eyes trained on the brewing coffee maker. "Maa. I guess I've been better, but otherwise it's all good at the moment."

"Even when you've hardly eaten anything else than three fish sandwiches and half a pear in the last two days while I wasn't here to cook for you?"

The bastard did nothing to hide the smug tone in that taunting question.

After deeming his countering moves utterly useless against the equally stubborn opponent, a defeated huff left the masked mouth and both the silver-haired head and the pale shoulders drooped in mocking surrender. "..Yes, Iruka-sensei." A victorious snort colored with a following bubble of laughter was heard from behind his back, and despite getting his pride rubbed to his face once again, Kakashi couldn't help but give a small chuckle to himself. Whether his brightening mood was due to the possibility of the younger man actually caring about his well-being despite the man's equal eagerness to kick his ass to the next weeks whenever they interacted, or the passing wave of warmth that resulted from the fleeting thought, the copy-nin couldn't care enough to categorize it. What he did wish to get in order, though, were the matters that he wasn't sure if either of them were willing to discuss. Then again, he hardly believed that their situation could get any worse than it was if they just sat down and had a long chat about all the things that had happened to them ever since they had sealed themselves into the light-gray house. Maybe it was time he pulled himself up from the deep pit in which he had managed to dig himself by being the arrogant asshole the bureaucratic bully always accused him to be.

After all, how much could it really hurt to play the game honestly for a change? "..Iruka-sensei-"

"Kakashi-san."

Surprised enough to slip out of the customary look of severe boredom, the jounin's gray eye snapped wide open at the rather strongly spoken words, and the silver-haired nin turned to give the man washing the dishes an uncharacteristically attentive look as Kakashi's silent musings were cut short. The dark eyes kept their focus on the plate that was scrubbed by the strong hands, but the jounin could easily detect the absent look in them. Nevertheless, the sudden change in the air between them made him hesitate if he should acknowledge the unexpected opening of discussion the man had offered for him to take. The hands cleaning the dish slowed their movement, and after what seemed like making a decision, the chuunin turned his eyes away from the sink and gave the Sharingan user an unreadable sidelong look, which Kakashi answered with his own set of gestures, the masked jaw stopping briefly with its chewing on the tasty rice ball filled with bean curd while the unyielding gray eye was kept firmly in contact with the deep brown ones.

What followed next made the masked shinobi almost choke on his bite.

"..I learned the meaning of fear when I didn't even understand the concept of duty. Considering the times, though, it doesn't make me any more special than the shinobi working next to me." The words were calm and quiet, but what made Kakashi's gut stir with conflicting feelings was the rather intense look taking over the slanted eyes that collided with the surprisingly colorless voice of the younger man. Then the teacher turned his attention back to the kitchen sink, and the meticulously working hands returned to their task on washing the dishes, the sounds of scrubbing and rinsing curling around the words flowing from the full lips in an unhurried pace: "On the other hand, feeling fear doesn't make any man lesser, moreover facing the fear and dealing with it the best way one can. Incidentally, not only do I know that, but I also know that I'm one of the most influential persons to affect the minds of our village's children as they learn about our merciless profession." A small soup bowl was put onto the drying rack. "...When they learn that it's actually quite mundane to get one's name carved into the stone at some point, mostly before the age of forty as you once pointed out." The tan fingers ran over the smooth ceramic surface in an almost tender way before the hand was dropped to rest on the sink's edge. "I'm the first to evaluate which of those kids won't live past sixteen years if taken to the field...and then see them walk through the gates with their jounin instructor." The perceptive eyes turned to give a pointed glance at the jounin's direction, and with the given reminder of his first long-term mission with the terror triplets that had went wrong on way too many levels for him to even start counting them, Kakashi could see the sharp point the chuunin had carefully concealed in the calmly spoken words. A small chuckle left the full-lipped mouth as the dark-haired chuunin turned his eyes down to look at the rippling surface of the now lukewarm water, and the narrow, gray eye followed as a lone finger slowly traced a kanji for a name the both men knew on the water's surface, the drawn lines disappearing into the wavering surface the moment they were completed, just like the life of a shinobi. "...That boy has given me plenty of reasons to be afraid, you know."

Rendered into total silence, Kakashi lifted his attention away from the water and observed the man next to him: the calm, soft smile that splayed on the usually very foul mouth, the slightly melancholic look that swirled in the dark eyes, and the tan, highly trained hands, the other holding the dish brush in the now dish-free water while the other was curled in a loose fist against the smooth metal edge; each precisely controlled show of emotion that were given for him to decipher. Before he could form any questions or comments based on the information he had managed to gather from the other, the plug was plucked out from the sink and the man's mouth opened once again, dissolving the soft-spoken emotions away from the dark-haired man's aura as the suddenly narrowed eyes took on a hardened, determined look.

"In that sense, if by being a 'practice-oriented' teacher, as you so elegantly put it, I make sure that those little hellions are sure to return back from their missions, and I don't have to attend any more funerals of the unfortunate as I already have to, because sometimes all the luck and skill doesn't prevent it when it's time for someone to die, then I'm more than happy to drill the battle tactics and projectile angles into their tiny heads by making them actually do the things they'll be assigned to perform, even if my own physical well-being is constantly in danger from their clumsy kunai handling skills and idiotically executed attempts. Working with Naruto should have already shown you how some of us need the hard methods of pragmatic training to improve our skills." An amused, warm grin snuck on the tan face, it spreading the bright glint of humor and life back into the dark, previously saddened eyes. "Not many have spotted that tendency in me, so I have to give you some points for that."

Spotting his cue to join the conversation the other was engaging him in, Kakashi gave a long, pensive hum at the chuunin's spontaneous monologue before giving the slightly smiling man a passing look. "Those are wise and kind words of a capable teacher, Iruka-sensei. I can see why the brats adore you." To his pleasing note, a flicker of surprise passed in the teacher's sharp eyes. Then again, their discussions hadn't usually delved into such depths before, so hearing that the annoying and arrogant Hatake could actually reply without twisting the words for his own amusement was apparently somewhat of a miracle to the wary sensei. On the other hand, spotting the keen flash in the perceptive eyes was enough to tattle that those words were not the ones the scheming Umino had been waiting for. Being a man not to disregard the given requests, Kakashi decided to yank the bait the other had dangled in front of him for a good while already. Slowly, the darkly dressed jounin turned his upper body to face the man standing next to him. "..You don't leave yourself open, do you," Kakashi said with a low voice and tilted his head in a thoughtful manner, the gray eye being narrowed into a considering slit on the pale, masked face.

The dark eyes were turned to answer the intense look in the gray eye, and a feeble smile with a dismissive shrug met the copy-nin's hidden accusation. "A shinobi is a creature of habit, I suppose. Considering that it wasn't a question, I'd say that you have worked on it long enough to know that very well already."

That...was a bit unnerving answer. "Then tell me something that we don't have in common."

The thick silence dropped on them as unannounced as The Legendary Stupid Brothers did on an unattended lunch box, and the men could both feel the air crackle from something that didn't share a connection with the roaring thunder on any weather scale.

Then, a dry yet devilish chuckle escaped the younger shinobi, and the dark eyebrows rose in a mocking manner on the scarred face. "Knowing the fact that it's already half past five in the afternoon, and regarding that you have oddly enough called your current dinner a breakfast, I'd say that there are quite a lot of things that we don't have in common at the moment, Kakashi-san," came the snickered reply from the now positively smirking lips, and the brown eyes were obviously enjoying the current view they were given as Kakashi could feel his whole brain stumble to an abrupt halt.

...He had slept for how many hours?

The bright bark of laughter that greeted his utterly aghast look pulled the copy-nin out of his stupor, and the academy instructor shook his dark-haired head, turned away from the kitchen and while he walked towards the bedroom, the man cast a playful look at Kakashi's direction over the broad shoulder. "You already know my opinion on handing out openings too easily, genius. I'll go and sort through our laundry now that you've finally decided to crawl out of your bed. In the meantime, you better eat more than just those rice balls while resetting your inner clock. I didn't make the soup just to decorate the fridge with it." The teasing voice was quick to tick the needed nerves to make the masked jounin wonder how much it would cost him to do some target practicing with the flippant sadist who gave him the final snort before disappearing into the shared sleeping quarters.

On the other hand, if the necessary evil had unintentionally added a little more sway in his step, Kakashi didn't mind.

"Is it just me or would it be about time for someone to create a bit more variety in the standard shinobi clothes?" Iruka's warm voice greeted Kakashi as the jounin stepped to the bedroom door after finishing his late snack (and after berating himself for letting his inner clock to fail and humiliate him for the first time ever), and the masked man was presented with a sight of an amused sensei sitting cross-legged on the floor and looking exasperatedly at the sorted piles of various pieces of clothing that were surrounding the man. The brightly smiling chuunin gave the standing jounin a look which clearly asked his opinion on the matter, and Kakashi gave the different shades of gray, blue and black a short glance before snorting at the teacher's musings and joining the man on the floor.

"Maa, I'm sure there is a clever reason for why our outfit is called a uniform, sensei," the jounin noted with an air of teasing in the smiling eyes, and was pleased to gain a rumble of laughter from the other man. Then a black singlet was shoved at him and after a short inspection he was almost certain that it was his and tossed the garment onto his futon before picking up a dark shirt from an other pile.

"That's a good point, Kakashi-san. Though would it really hurt to add at least one more shade of, say, green to the list?" In the copy-nin's amused opinion, the teacher was clearly out on a mission to get their quota of nonsense for the day. Yet another shirt was lifted in sight. "Is this yours or mine?"

The pale hands took the shirt and after a beat gave it back to the chuunin. "It's yours, I believe. Most of mine have the mask still intact on them." A confirming hum reached his ears, and the jounin couldn't help but offer a wide, masked smirk to the pensive chuunin who was currently comparing two pairs of black boxers on his lap. "Ah, but we do have an extra green on the list. Sadly it's all being used on Gai and Lee." This time the resulted laughter was loud and surprised as the sensei was clearly caught off-guard, and Kakashi gave himself a small pat on his back for dishing up such a good counterattack to the given opening.

A series of poorly controlled chuckles rang in the room as Iruka tried to gather his wits, and the teacher wiped his eyes clear from the tears of mirth before flashing a mockingly suffering look to the equally humored jounin. "On a second thought, brown is also a nice color."

"Depends who's wearing it, sensei. Imagine-"

"Don't even think about using Gai-san or Lee as an example, bastard. I have enough mental scars to deal with already without you adding any more to them." One pair of boxers was thrown on Kakashi's futon, and after a second of thought, the other pair followed.

"Now now, you can't know who I was picking to use as a reference. It could have also been-" The rest of his sentence was muffled into a sleeveless shirt which launched a surprise attack at him.

"I haven't accepted a mission that keeps me away from the crazy world of a desk chuunin just to have you here to remind me of all the omnideprived lunatics I'm forced to work with in my everyday life and struggle through their antics with feeble success whenever they decide to bring some excitement to our shifts. Not to mention all the crazy jounins who have the nerve to whine about their mission scrolls and screw up their reports." Two black tank tops were neatly folded and put next to the ranting chuunin.

"Maa-"

"Including you, Hatake-san." The ignited, fiery challenge was clear in the flashing dark eyes, and the pull of the full lips was enough to tell Kakashi that his obvious yet interrupted comment was humored even though it could lead to some physical injuries should the copy-nin choose the wrong words to continue their amiable squabbling.

"Well, to be truthful, we always have wondered how you actually managed to pull all that patience and energy out of yourself in order to deal with us in the first place, Iruka-sensei," the jounin drawled and cast a smiling look towards the addressed man who seemed to find something rather amusing in the spoken words if the soft chuckle was anything to go by.

"I thought it was already widely known that I have a severe tendency to work with impossible challenges, seeing that not only do I work with manic children most of the week but also have voluntarily taken the offered position to handle the chaos of a mission desk, moreover being always available for Tsunade-sama and her own personal escapades of a drunken Hokage. Having agreed to work with you for a whole month speaks for itself when regarded in this particular light, don't you agree?" Iruka couldn't help the flow of light laughter leaving him when he spotted the flat stare in the gray eye. It had been a while for him to make Hatake scowl like that.

"Would you like me to agree with that, then?"

The voice of the older nin was casual and light, and already taking the offered opening for one of his snippy jabs, Iruka opened his mouth, but thought better of it when he caught the look in the lone eye. The narrowed, coal-gray eye wasn't fooling the teacher enough to dismiss the flicker of somber emotions being briefly displayed in it amid the warm humor the older man was showing, and a pang of an odd, heavy feeling hit his chest at the sight of a rueful, darkened aura passing the masked man's demeanor.

For the first time during their mission, Iruka didn't know what to say.

Suddenly, the shift of air caught their attention, and Kakashi turned to look who had entered the corridor behind him, only to be greeted with the sight of an armored body and a striking white, painted porcelain mask, which wasn't quite enough to hide the awkwardness of the ANBU from his former captain as the copy-nin noticed the grocery bags held in both gloved hands. An almost silent curse was also registered by the Sharingan user's keen hearing, only this time from behind his back, and a tweak of undefined restless heat tickled Kakashi's nerves as he turned to catch a glimpse of a passing red hue on the high cheekbones before Iruka hastily turned his burning face away from him and pretended to focus on the dark gray muscle shirt held in the busy hands.

Like many times before during their odd mission, Hatake Kakashi had a fleeting feeling that someone was out there to get him with the whole mess they were currently in.

In any case, he had a kohai to deal with.

"I'll be back in a moment," Kakashi said and after receiving a tiny nod from the tensed teacher who, much to the jounin's wonder, refused to meet his eye, the lightning user picked himself up and stepped into the corridor where the other masked assassin was waiting for him. Without a word, the jounin closed the bedroom door behind him and nodded towards the kitchen, knowing that the other man took the order as it was mutely said. Side by side, the highly-trained killers walked to the kitchen and the full bags were put on the counter before both the pale and armored hands set to work in emptying them.

"How are you and Umino-san doing, sempai?" The asking voice was calm and professionally detached underneath the painted mask.

A passing shrug met the inquiring words, though more out of showing an attitude than answering the question. "Fine, I guess. Iruka-sensei is feeling much better. He even cooked today, which is a good sign." The ex-ANBU dug out the much awaited coffee refill pouches from the food bags and while stifling a cheer of joy, the silver-haired man placed them gently next to his empty tins that were waiting to be filled up.

Amidst the internal happy dance that was going around in the masked coffee addict's mind, the curt nod from the pensive ANBU was registered. "Good to know."

Anyone walking into the same room would have had a hard time to get through the thick wall of aggressive silence that suddenly filled the whole kitchen and the space between the two black ops. Both the former and the active assassin continued emptying the bags as if neither of them had noticed the shift in the air that was currently being suppressed by a clash of dark intentions wrapping around it like the jaws of a predator closing around the neck of its prey.

"A wooden tea box, Tenzou?" The first cut through the tense ambiance was swift and merciless.

"Better than giving the man a heart attack, sempai." The countering blow was equally cruel.

"At least I didn't try to push a hole into his pants."

The barely choked cough said enough on that topic, and the sharp nails of the black glove scratched the turtleneck collar in an embarrassed manner. "I wasn't really thinking at that moment."

The answering stare from the unimpressed copy-nin spoke volumes.

Then the masked eyes turned to give a passing glance at the empty corridor behind their backs before the ANBU took a firm hold on the bare, pale arm and a low-spoken whisper pierced through the crackling thunder that was still loitering above the village. "But now that I have been thinking, I think it's only fair to let you know that my intentions towards Umino-san run a bit deeper than just providing some tea to him, and I would hate to fight my former captain over something he himself doesn't seem to value much."

Hadn't they known better, the men would have thought that the violent strike of lightning could have been caused by the look passing the sharpened gray eye of the former Hound the moment the kohai's words were registered. Yet before the men could shift the crackling silence into bone-cracking motion, a voice spoke, ever so calmly, behind their freezing backs.

"Good evening, ANBU-san."

Shocked enough from the fact that there was someone who indeed managed to sneak up on two ridiculously skilled elites, without a blink both Kakashi and the ANBU turned their attention towards the source of the spoken words, only to be greeted with an unreadable look in the dark eyes that were observing them a dozen feet away. The kohai let go of Kakashi's arm in an instant and the both high-ranks felt more or less unnervingly exposed under the speculative silence that had dashed through the space after the teacher had made his presence known. While hoping that their discomfort hadn't been detected by the sharp-minded academy teacher, both the ANBU and the copy-nin were uncharacteristically unanimous over one specific question that was obvious for them both to have now running in their heads.

How much did the chuunin hear?

"..Good evening, Umino-san," the slightly nervous voice of the ANBU made it hard for Kakashi not to roll his eyes, but noticing the oddly flat look that greeted the muttered reply was sufficient to keep the jounin from making any weird faces.

In both assassins' opinion, the rise of the dark eyebrow did feel a bit more pronounced with the lightning backing it up. "I see that the food I ordered is delivered."

"Um, yes. Everything should be delivered, Umino-san." As if sensing the tense ambiance slowly descending over them all in the kitchen, the ANBU stepped away from Kakashi and gave the lightning user a rather long look beneath the white porcelain mask. "I should be going now." With that the animal-masked man turned stiffly to walk away from the kitchen, although the assassin was pleased to feel the masked amusement die from the jounin's presence as the man of thousand jutsus suddenly realized just how close to the dark-skinned chuunin the armored nin was actually getting. To Kakashi's further annoyance, the younger man didn't step away from the armored bodyguard who grazed the teacher's personal range.

"I take it that Tsunade-sama won't be seeing us today since it's already getting past seven," Iruka said in a calm tone, and the dark eyes followed the path of the ANBU as the masked man walked past the teacher only two feet away, them both missing the sharp look thrown at the ANBU's brown-haired head from the direction of the kitchen counter.

A silent nod was given to the question. "She asked me to inform that there are things she must handle first, but will come over as soon as she can. Hokage-sama also told that if anything urgent happens, you can contact either us or Shizune-san. Have a good night, Umino-san. Senpai." With that the masked man turned to Kakashi and gave a small salute before vanishing into thin air.

After finding its courage once more, the silence slunk out of its hiding place and settled to fidget between the two men left alone in the dimly lit kitchen. Slowly, the dark eyes turned from looking the spot where the masked elite had disappeared, and with a long, almost hesitant sweep across the floorboards, they were lifted to look at the single gray. Then, calmly, a lone hand moved from the chuunin's side, and the moment the hand and the object it was holding were lifted better in sight, the earlier odd look in the dark eyes made way to the much more familiar spark that set the teacher's famous glare alight into a low flame of impending scolding designed to make the others' lives hell and beyond, which in turn made the lone, gray eye widen a fraction at the recognition of one innocent, black book, while the masked owner of the said eye started to mentally go through his trap escape training.

"Would you mind explaining to me why I found this underneath the piled laundry, untouched, with two new seals in it, Kakashi-san?"

The thunder had never sounded so malevolent in the masked jounin's ears.

Chapter Text

The roar of thunder echoed through the flooding streets of Konoha and its residents did all they could to get through the day with dry feet with more or less success while the rain made sure that not even a spot was missed by its pounding raindrops. As the said inhabitants also included loitering shinobis who have been left without any official missions to keep them away from trouble, some turned the self-appointed mission of the dry footgear into a variety of challenges that had several different impacts on their fellow citizens depending on how much of the well-trained muscle the skin-tight green spandex did put on display amidst the heated competition. Then again, Tsunade had yet to give her thanks for the Konoha's Green Beast for whipping her subordinates into vigorously executed fieldwork periods during the dilemma of the dull assignment rush that occasionally took over the mission desk. Despite the common dislike towards the meek D-rank requests, the chance for having something else to look at instead of the Bulging Bumps Of Youthful Springtime that were sprinkled with oddly glittering pearls of water was seized with no qualms whatsoever.

For many clans and individuals, their eyesight was their best weapon and they fully intended to keep things that way.

Meanwhile, in one tiny household in a light-gray small building that was located behind a high fence wall, one gray eye stayed focused on one tiny black book that was held in one tan hand as one particular genius mind was kicked into overdrive when the half growled words of one certain, miffed chuunin were finally deciphered by the always over-thinking gray cells of one infamous silver-haired man of thousand-and-two enemies. After asking what he had been mulling on the hidden tongue for a couple of painfully slow minutes, the number just might climb up to three. “What kind of seals are we talking about, Iruka-sensei?”

With that the jounin got more closely acquainted with the book that was suddenly slammed against his chest with a bit more pronunciation than needed to make the other's opinion clear on the matter. Only that the feel of the solid leather-bound covers pressing against his sternum wasn't the top priority in the bewildered copy-nin's mind as he could soon enough smell the sweet, warm breath of the dark-haired man who had stepped well within the elite's inner range, the lean muscles emitting low burning heat against the darkly clothed body from just an inch away. ”Exactly what it sounded like, Kakashi-san.” The smooth baritone reverberated from the broad chest of the younger nin and filled Kakashi's rapidly heating ears as the murmured words flew past them, only to be barely caught by the still conscious sections of his staggering brain. “Two new and visible seals, that have apparently been ignored by someone high-ranking while the other party of the team had been knocked out for two frigging days. That kind of seals.” The last part of the tiny rant was granted with a menacing glint flashing in the dark, narrowed eyes on the tan face, and the pressure against the jounin's darkly clothed chest grew a notch as the skilled killer's fingers pressed the book further against it.

There really weren't many intelligent entries that Kakashi was given in his current situation, as it seemed that the flow of blood had taken a liking to the more southern regions of his anatomy, the flee of his esteemed intelligence being the quicker the better he could calculate the needed angle and speed to get a taste of the full lips that were teasing his masked jawline too close for comfort. The moment when a sliver of the all too well-known scent teased his flaring nostrils, Kakashi could only hope that his next words didn't come out as a husky pant. “I see. Do you want me to take a look at them now?” After an agonizingly slow beat, the teacher's body heat disappeared from the pale skin when the chuunin stepped back and away from the jounin's personal space, and Kakashi quickly gagged the tiny coo of disappointment that rang through his head at the same time when his still somewhat functioning mind told his twitching fingers to keep the groping to themselves.

“Does an Inuzuka take a piss in the foliage just because they can?” The tone of the rhetorical question was just daring him to ask which one.

...Ah yes, the man had had Kiba in his classes. Ignoring the odd, wary look thrown at his face, Kakashi let a short-lived chuckle escape beneath his mask in order to both lighten up the suddenly suffocating tension had wrapped itself around the men and to ease the curling excitement that had been accumulating within his heating systems. Now wasn't the right time to pounce any attractive chuunins and get away with it in full health, he was quite sure of that. After giving the now suspicious-looking teacher a hopefully unreadable smile with his eyes, the elite took a hold of the tiny book that had started to affect their mission in more ways than they had ever thought it would. The rustle of pages filled the expectant silence that hung between the two men in the kitchen, and while the lone eye scanned the new pages, the jounin could feel the intense gaze of the dark, narrow eyes tickle his skin. Ibiki was definitely arranging some of their courses when they trained new teachers for the Academy, there was no question about that.

“I'll leave you to it for a minute, there's a pile of laundry that has been calling my name for a while. Let me know when your head works again, Kakashi-san,” Iruka said and before the elite shinobi could respond, the quick man disappeared once more back into the bedroom and thus left one rather perplexed jounin alone in the kitchen.

After a blink over the strange behavior of his current mission partner, the former Hound gave a tiny shrug while internally celebrating his success on maintaining his self-control in the company of the target of his arising sexual appetite, and then focused his thoughts back to the currently displayed spread of two off-white notebook pages. Now that there was enough blood entering the right parts of his physiology, it didn't take long for the field veteran to recognize what was formed on the said sheets of paper with a few accurate brush strokes. After realizing what he was staring at, though, the aforementioned S-class menace became also highly aware of the steadily accelerating pulse he found himself suddenly experiencing. The seal type he was presented with was one of the most basic forms of battle seals even a genin like Naruto had learned after Jiraiya had beaten the knowledge into that blond head, and knowing that his former codename was Hound for a pretty good reason, not to mention him being presently accompanied by a man whose job description withheld knowing every single seal ever doodled, Kakashi also understood rather quickly why the temperamental chuunin was ready to blow his top at him.

It was a summoning seal.

Now why would the Hokage put an effort on creating two slightly modified summoning seals for their mission? The second the thought question had appeared in Kakashi's mind, the narrow gray eye gave a subtle twitch as the solemn reason for that act tweaked a bundle of nerves on his temples. An aggravated growl erupted from the darkly clothed throat and the glare of the now steel-hard eye pierced imaginative holes in the innocent pages while the sound of crinkling paper was heard in the electrified air.

That woman was planning something.

“Should we activate them?”

Iruka turned around from his doings and gave a questioning look at the jounin who stood in the doorway before rolling his eyes and then continuing putting his clean clothes neatly back into the bag. “Why are you asking me? You're the cell leader the last time I checked.”

The chortle of surprised laughter did little to ease the tension that was getting tighter than chakra wire. “I never would have thought to live long enough to see the day when you'll be the one to pull our ranks at me, sensei.”

“Keep talking nonsense and it wouldn't be the only thing that I'll pull at you, Kakashi-san.” The hint of warning rang between the carefully composed lines, and given that their mission had so far been terrible enough to keep their Hokage entertained for years, Kakashi couldn't help himself.

“I couldn't have guessed you of all people to be an exhibitionist-” Without further thinking the masked jaw snapped shut. The look he was given wasn't healthy for either of them. After the thunder felt safe enough to mind its own business and continue its merry roar in the background, the darkly burning eyes narrowed their glare into something that made Kakashi slightly nervous regarding the well-being of his own idiotic head that was currently thinking ways to save his ass from a sharply cutting death. As his situation was given, all he could rely on at that moment was his training...or what was left of it because of the damn chakra seals, that is. Then again, talking himself out of a pinch was a skill he had to polish a bit anyway. “Ah, what the hell. It's only Tsunade-sama that we're dealing here with, neh?”

“Is that supposed to make me discard the pleasure of killing you right now?” The target was not convinced.

“Maa, it would be rather beneficial for this mission, sensei.”

For a moment neither of the men moved, and the dark eyes were locked with the lone gray that did its best to keep the nervous twitches undetected in it. After what seemed like a minute that couldn't decide whether to go forwards or backwards, a smirk pulled the full lips on the chuunin's face and the previously dangerous gleam softened in the slanted eyes that took on a look of amusement. “Am I making you nervous for some reason, Kakashi-san?”

“Now there's a kettle calling the pot black, sensei,” came the equally humored reply. Not long after the copy-nin's low voice had spoken the warm words, the first chuckle followed, it soon being accompanied with the steady flow of snickers and chuckles from men who were clearly pulling way too many tactics over one single discussion.

“Alright, let me see those seals again,” Iruka said and stood up from the floor. Kakashi gave a nod and handed the discussed book to the teacher who flipped the pages back open to look at them more closely. “...What on earth is that woman up to?”

“I think I've reached the limit where I just stop asking myself that, and it would be wise for you to do the same, Iruka-sensei.” The soft snort from the masked nose spoke volumes. It hadn't been only Iruka that had gotten the privilege to get summoned in the crack of dawn to humor their less than sober Hokage.

“It just doesn't make sense.”

“Hence the advice, sensei.”

“Must be the first good one I've heard from you in a while.” Ignoring the offended glare directed at his forehead, the chuunin rubbed his temple and gave a frustrated huff over the open pages. “Why would she suddenly make visible seals and give us the freedom to open them by our own choice? Sure, the type doesn't seem to require lot of chakra so we shouldn't die from opening them, but there's no logic either in the amount of them or the timing since if my calculations are correct those were put in here while I was still in the la-la-land.” Iruka gave a passing look at the pensive, masked man who quirked an eyebrow at his previously spoken words.

The tilt of the silver-haired head was casual yet subtle enough to tell the teacher about the slowly forming theory. “Maybe there was something meant for me while I was monitoring your health. Some medical equipment, perhaps?”

“In that case you're more irresponsible than Kotetsu.” The eye-roll from the bit peeved jounin was ignored. “But even if that's the case it still doesn't fit her thinking pattern. Why would she send a medical gear for you to heal me if we're the last to know what's happening in our bodies, furthermore without coming herself to see that you actually know how to use the given tools? And with two summoning seals, no less?”

The smiling mismatched eyes were clearly taking on the offered opening. “Well you know what they say about women and their logic-”

The silently smirking mouth on the tan face said enough.

“..That was low.”

“You can only blame yourself for falling for that, iiiidiot.” The laughter rang clear in the snickering chuunin's words, but before the jounin could maneuver their situation in order to gain his ego some retribution out of it, the twinkle of mischief died from the smiling eyes of the younger shinobi and the book found itself suddenly pressed to the floor by a pair of paper-cut hands. Shocked that the teacher had abruptly decided to get reckless with his strategy, Kakashi wasn't quick enough to stop the other man before a pad of a thumb was bitten and the familiar command of summons rang in their small bedroom.

Now, when a person performs a task that has basically become an ingrained part of their routine, such as giving summons for a professional shinobi, there's little thought given to the possibilities of the executed act being partially ineffective or even failing in fulfilling the wanted outcome. When that happens, though, the resulting reactions are recorded as very valid warnings on how to prepare oneself better for the minuscule chance of the attempted performance to either backfire badly or miss the target completely. Alas, neither of the now effectively silenced men belonged to that age group that had started to gain benefit from the mentioned recording system.

Namely, they were the exact reason for it to be created in the first place.

Both the chuunin and the jounin kept on staring in disbelief at the small book and the red blood drops that were smeared on the now vanished summoning seal. Then two sharp-minded heads rose up to cast a wondering look around the ascetic bedroom before returning the puzzled looks back to the page spread that was now sporting one seal less.

Iruka was first to break his sudden muteness. “..Nothing happened?” Carefully, the chuunin lifted his hand from the blank page and gave his bitten thumb a positively baffled stare. In the next second, the dark eyes shot wide and the thumb was pointed at the other nin's direction. “Nothing happened!”

Truth to be told, that was the same sentence that had been ringing in Kakashi's head for a while as well. “Maa, I can see that much, sensei.” Crouching down to the other man's level, the jounin took the book from the floor and gave the smudgy page an examining look. “Did your chakra make any contact?”

“The seal wouldn't disappear if it didn't, now would it?” The rising annoyance was clearly mixing itself with a few spoonfuls of panic in the dark-haired teacher's voice. “At least it shouldn't..right? Tell me we didn't misread the calligraphy, Kakashi-san.” This wasn't good. Things could get more than just unnecessarily messy if they had missed some crucial part in the brushstrokes.

Grateful for his mask to hide the grimacing mouth, Kakashi scratched his messy mane while his mind traveled two hundred miles per minute, and as frustrating as it was for his ego to admit, the jounin felt a bit lost with the very odd occurrence. He had never encountered a seal that would disappear without performing the task it had been designed for, even fleetingly.

A couple of miles away from the village, the passing thunder gave an awkward cough.

Then...there was a knock on the door.

Without wasting a second, the black book was snapped sharply shut and both men scrambled to the corridor to stare at the closed entrance that led to the front yard. Somebody had come through the seal on the front gate and their presence was clear on the other side. Slowly and silently, the men split to both sides of the narrow corridor and carefully made their way towards the closed door that was given a knock for the second time.

“...Who is that?” Iruka whispered and gave a quick look at equally suspicious Kakashi across the corridor.

The former ANBU gave a subtle shake of his head. “...I have absolutely no idea, sensei. It isn't ANBU, since those guys won't even use the doors, and it isn't Tsunade-sama or Shizune-san. It does feel familiar, but I don't have enough chakra to get a proper reading. That much I know. Do you recognize it?”

Iruka stopped a five feet away from the door and a focused frown appeared on the tan forehead. “No. The presence is familiar, that much I agree, but I can't place it...” Suddenly the brown eyes widened. “..That isn't a shinobi.”

Kakashi gave a blink at that. Not a shinobi? “Then who-?” For the second time that day, the jounin was unable to stop the unpredictable sensei, and the gray eye could only stare as the younger nin pulled the front door open in a way that made the former Hound's internal warning bells go into a frenzy while the jounin hid himself behind the opened wooden barrier. How suicidal had the man become after teaching Naruto in his class, really? The completely aghast look on Iruka's face was enough to provoke the jounin's never sleeping curiosity, though, and for a moment the gray eye rested on the almost comically widened dark eyes and the dropped jaw of the younger man who seemed to be torn between slamming the door shut or actually hazarding a word of a greeting to whoever was on the other side of the threshold.

When the warm, slightly raspy voice of an older man rang over the doorstep, it was also Kakashi's turn to lose the control of his jaw muscles.

“Evening! Long time no see, Iruka-sensei. You guys must be hungry, she said you needed two bowls with extra toppings. Is Hatake-san with you there as well?”

Of all the things their Hokage could have sent them, she gave them the third father figure of one certain loud blond ball of energy, the only man who knew precisely what his customers needed for their joys and sorrows and who made sure that they left him both with full stomachs and warm smiles.

“...Teuchi-san?”

“Really, she did say that your place was a bit small but I think that our Hokage's being too modest again.” The warm chatter of the oldest man of the three floated upon the kitchen counter as weathered hands placed two delivery boxes on the wooden surface, opened one of them and then pulled out two steaming bowls from it to be stared by two speechless, perfectly trained killers that were ogling the whole situation happening from a few feet away. “Now let's see, I have miso ramen with some eggplant for Hatake-san here and then some beef ramen for you Iruka-sensei.” The bowls were placed gently on the kitchen counter, Teuchi clearly paying no heed for the others staring at him and the second head he was clearly sporting, and then the second box was opened. “Here's also some miso soup and freshly made yakitori [1] and a small portion of yakiniku [2], as I heard from Tsunade-hime that she's put you on some sort of fish diet. Otherwise I would have made you some grilled mackerel as well, but maybe you'll enjoy more of these as Hatake-san here hates tempura -”

“How did you get here, Teuchi-san?” The sudden question blurted itself from Iruka's mouth without further notice, and both Kakashi and the ramen stand owner turned to stare at the teacher who was at that moment trying on different shades of embarrassed red. “I mean we're really thankful for the food and all that, but, um-”

“We thought only ANBU and Hokage-sama were able to get through the gate, Teuchi-san,” Kakashi continued the other's question, for which the profoundly blushing man seemed grateful.

Surely enough, Teuchi quickly understood what the two men were after. “Ah. I got summoned.” That seemed to snap both nins out of their stupor and Iruka to lose the fuchsia from the high cheekbones. Both professional spies exchanged questioning looks and Teuchi gave a mental eye-roll at the sight. Those two were really too slow sometimes for their own good. “Tsunade-hime said that you'll summon me here with some takeaway from Ichiraku within a few days' notice. I had all the ingredients ready so it was only a question when I would get the call. As soon as the mark she made on my kitchen wall lightened up, Ayame helped me to prepare the food and then I just stepped on the circle mark Hokage-sama had made on my kitchen floor. After a second I was here, and frankly I was expecting a bit more welcoming face, Iruka-sensei,” the older man teased Iruka and in a blink both Teuchi and Kakashi found themselves looking at two ripe apples decorating the group's youngest member's cheeks.

A finger found its way on the horizontal scar, and a sheepish grin snuck on the blushing chuunin's lips. “Ah, heh, sorry for that. We just weren't expecting anyone to drop by.” Soon after the army of implications had made itself known in his words, Iruka could only slap a hand on his even more heating face as he caught on the look on the ramen chef's face. “Not today, Teuchi-san. Please.”

“I didn't say a thing, Iruka-sensei,” came the laughed reply from the chef's direction, and for a minute Kakashi had a small nagging feeling that he was missing something from the interaction between the other two.

Iruka, as always, was quick to pull the jounin out of the swirling thoughts. “Then that means that the seal worked. I wonder what the other does then.” With that the tan shinobi turned on his heels and strolled into the bedroom with the book in his hands, leaving Kakashi to wonder if he should tie the man up the next time they got new seals in the notebook. That amount of acting on an impulse couldn't honestly be healthy.

“That's Iruka-sensei for you. Once he gets something in his mind it seems like there's nothing to stop him from doing it,” Teuchi chuckled next to the silent jounin, and it wasn't too long before he could feel the dark gray eye drill into the back of his head.

“What was the discussion about just now, Teuchi-san? Of you saying nothing?” If the older man was providing Kakashi with an opportunity to sniff around the battlefield, he wasn't against the fun.

A huff of amusement left the older man and he wiped his hands clean on the white apron before turning around to face the silent killer. “Just an old joke between a client and his chef, Kakashi-san. Nothing else.” The pull of already smiling mouth wasn't missed, though. “Then again, you've always been one of the most observant clients by my stand so far. Beside Iruka-sensei, that is.”

“Maa. You seem to know him well, Teuchi-san.” It clearly wasn't a question.

It was a bit unnerving for the ex-ANBU to realize that even the otherwise gentle and welcoming ramen stand owner could put such a sly look on the lightly wrinkled face. “Well enough to know that in a moment we'll know if the other seal he talked about works, Kakashi-san.” As if on cue, a yelp of horrified surprise accompanied with a loud pang of what could only mean chakra connection hitting the mark echoed from the bedroom.

“You did say it's Tsunade-sama we're talking about.” A small moan was heard between the munches.

“Maa, that I did, yes.” The gray eye was closed briefly as a heavenly tasty bit made the hidden tongue sing in appreciation.

“Then that's basically the only - ah – lollica-a-coolu-hio.”

“A what, sensei?” The mixture of chewing and laughing while wearing a mask had never been an experience Kakashi found worth of repeating.

A hastily downed glass of water later, the teacher was in a mood to elaborate. “The only logical conclusion, I said. I almost burned my tongue there.”

“Ah. That. I would be surprised if not, actually,” Kakashi mused and took a look at a heavy, sealed box over his shoulder. The presently discussed wooden cubical stood proudly between the men who were sitting and eating with fervor on the bedroom floor. Teuchi had left soon after the second summon was made once they had made sure that there hadn't been any explosives attached to the box and furthermore after seeing that the pale color on Iruka's face had been caused by nothing else than a rather big surprise from the unexpected object literally landing on his lap. The ramen stand owner had promised to deliver a message to the Hokage about them receiving the summons and both being still somewhat alive for the mission to continue, and after that it was all down to their rumbling stomachs to announce what had to be done next.

Hence the currently enjoyed small ramen picnic on their bedroom floor with a mysterious wooden box between their backs; the box that was currently the sole target for their brainstorming regarding its contents. Not that neither of them had already figured out what their beloved leader had, for sadistic and absurd reasons yet unknown, decided to deliver to two of her best men at work. Then again, the large sticker of rather inventive threats of physically harmful punishments should anyone touch the box was a rather obvious hint.

She had sent them sake.

“Well then. Kampai, sensei.” The smooth, low voice had a tint of warmth in it.

“Kampai, Kakashi-san,” Iruka said and the grinning men gave small toast on the wooden terrace, the day's thunder having finally passed over their home village and leaving the streets and rooftops glistening with moisture that gave them a serenade of tips and taps around the surrounding scenery. The chuunin took a slow, small sip of the clear liquid that had been poured into the fragile white cup and the instant the pleasant warmth of alcohol rose on his cheeks he knew the Hokage hadn't saved the expenses when picking up the sake for them.

All five bottles, to be exact.

“I have to hand it to her, this must be by far the best hiding place for her stash from Shizune-san that she has thought up in a while,” Kakashi said and pulled the teacher out of the low buzz that had made itself known in the Sharingan user's head as well.

“True that, Kakashi-san, and I must add that it was nice of her to offer a couple of bottles for our use as well,” Iruka chuckled and took a small note back into his hand from the floor where he had left it next to the opened sake bottle. “It says here that she expects to find at least two bottles unopened the next time she visits us.” The rumbling chortle from the older man made a nice warm wave rise on the already a bit rosy cheekbones, and the dark-haired sensei turned to give a speculating look at the amused masked assassin sitting a few feet next to him.

“It depends on the future mishaps we're undoubtedly still going to face on this mission, sensei. One bottle for each new misfortune, I'd say.”

“In that case we're already out of bottles if we use that logic,” Iruka snorted and swirled the beverage in his cup before lifting it to his smirking lips. “Then again, you know what they say about copy-nins and their logic-”

“Maa, maa, watch that tongue. You might lose it in your sleep.”

“Well then, better that than my brain, neh, Kakashi-san?” The almost predatory, low chuckle that resounded in the air around the jounin made a shock of shudders dance up and down Iruka's spinal area, and he had to hastily down the sip he had poured past his lips. That sound was all sin and dark promises in his opinion, and the teacher could only hope that the passing red flood taking over his cheeks would be discarded as being caused by the alcohol rather than the twinge of arousal making itself known in his black slacks.

“Are you sure you're one to talk as a Ninja Academy teacher, Iruka-sensei?” The tease hit the right spot, for that they both were sure of, and an abrupt explosion of slightly tipsy laughter erupted from the trained Konoha shinobis as they both reflected their thoughts at the hilarity of missing sanity when regarding the mental condition of their ranks. Slowly, the laughter lessened away and both men took a fill from the bottle that was gently placed between them, the two shinobis then settling for a comfortable, almost amiable period of silence.

Reclining his back against the wooden beam and after focusing on the feel of his ponytail pressing against its rough surface, Iruka gave the setting sun a thoughtful look. After that, the words came.

“...For the longest time I did question my sanity, you know. Accepting a Jinchuuriki as a close student, hell, even taking that boy to ramen frequently and seeing that his ass got both saved and roasted after every prank that backfired...most of the others thought that I had lost more than just a few nerve connections from my head back then, even before the whole mess with Mizuki happened. After that they were sure of it.” A quiet rumble of laughter erupted next to the widely grinning chuunin, and the men gave yet another small toast before the teacher continued. “Nowadays though, with Naruto away and all the things that have happened so far..I don't know if I actually ever managed to teach him anything useful in the end.” A pale hand waved in the air dismissively at that point, and Iruka gave the older male a curious look over his sake cup.

Kakashi gave a chuckle at the younger nin. “You're being too modest now, Iruka-sensei. That boy looks up to you, and no matter what he has whined in your care, you have given some good advices to that kid, not to mention Konohamaru as well. Despite them both being complete knuckleheads, they're good boys in the end, and even though they may not have gotten the points of your lectures yet I do have a hunch that they'll figure things out soon enough.” The mismatched eyes turned into what seemed like a soft smile. “I do still recall what you said at the funeral back then.”

After a slightly confused blink, the understanding seemed to dawn in the dark eyes, and then a quiet breath of a sad chuckle left the somberly smiling lips. “..I still remember how it felt to stand in front of his funeral picture.” For the second time that day, Kakashi managed to spot the swirl of melancholy appear in the man's eyes, and the silence that settled next to the drinking men took a slow sip of the offered sake and enjoyed the quiet minute that disappeared when the full lips of the young sensei opened yet again. “The reminders of our lifestyle aren't the nicest ones, are they. To fight, or to die...moreover while usually being far away from those who are held dear. Sandaime, though...” The fingers running over the white cup's surface stilled. “I don't know if it's considered disrespectful to say this, but in his case I'm actually glad that he died while fighting in his own village, surrounded by all of the people he loved...maybe that's why he was told to be smiling when you found him.” The grip on the porcelain tightened for the smallest amount. “That could also be the reason why it was so hard for me to get up in the following day.” He could sense the gray eye turn to give a long look at his direction, and against the blue tint of sorrow that had silently crept inside him, Iruka could still feel his mouth pull itself into a bright smile under the keen look he was given by the jounin. “I told you already that I know how big the gap between us is and that I'm not foolish enough to try to reach your level, Kakashi-san, but I do wish to be more prepared when the time for battle isn't any longer something that will happen somewhere in the distant future. Seeing the look in your eye for the past months after Naruto took off has said enough for me to know that we both know at least that much. I'm at my best when I'm protecting someone, so if I ever gain enough skills and strength to keep the others safe I'd be happy to die on the battlefield if it ever comes down to that.”

The chuunin didn't need to lift his eyes towards the older man to know that the countering argument was already on its way. “...There's a flaw in that theory, sensei.” An inquiring sound was heard from the man's direction while the tan shinobi took a sip of the alcohol, which was enough to tell Kakashi to go on with his hypothesis. “You can't protect anyone when you're dead. Given, the dead can be asked for guidance, forgiveness, happy memories, all kinds of other things, but I have yet to see a name on the stone that could protect someone beyond the grave. At least not in the way as you're currently referring to. Things need to be lived and seen through if one wishes to protect the others, and true, sometimes there's no other way than to sacrifice oneself for others, but that shouldn't be the first resolve.” As if to emphasize his point, the pale fingers brushed lightly through the mane of silver hair, that way revealing the closed, scarred eyelid behind the silvery bangs before the jounin took the sake bottle and filled their cups again. “On the contrary, self-sacrifice can also hurt in much worse ways than any blade or torture ever could. Seeing that the one doing it would be dead doesn't of course change a thing in their case, but for those who are left behind...that's not something to be spoken lightly about.”

Iruka gave a blink at the man's surprisingly honest words, but spotting the somber look in the lone eye did make him give a warm, almost comforting look at the copy-nin's direction before he turned back to look at the filled cup and then the darkening sky. Without giving it a second thought, a finger rose to rub the horizontal scar when the chuunin's murmured words met the deep blue nightfall. “....The things people have in common.”

Kakashi took a small sip of his sake, and over the edge of the cup, the gray eye gave a good, long look at the pensive younger man while the night's muffled noises enveloped the two men who sat in silence on the wooden terrace. After a passing beat, the mask was lifted back to place, and the jounin turned his focus shortly back to the world behind the high fence wall. “Then of course any nin who's stupid enough to try to kill you would have to go through hell first if Naruto catches onto them. Which did happen with Mizuki, mind you”, Kakashi pointed with a small smile in his eyes as the bubbling chuckle of the other man eased the otherwise serious ambiance between them. As he gave a better look at the slightly reddened scarred cheekbones of the younger man, he could only blame the sudden stir of strange heat in his gut that unexpectedly made his thoughts turn into murmured words. “Come to think of it, I've never seen you drink, sensei.”

A slightly unintelligent mixture of a snort and a chuckle left the teacher and a dark eyebrow rose in an unrefined way to deliver a clear message. “Now that's something to hear from a man who's practically the epitome of the phrase 'I've never seen', Kakashi-san. You'd be astounded to realize just how many shinobis complain about that fact and then have the nerve to ask me if I've ever seen it.”

“...Maa-”

“I can see where you're going with that 'maa', smart-ass, so wipe that sleazy look off your face before you'll really get a good reason to keep it unseen.”

The stretching smirk he saw was wide and sly on the chuunin's face, and try as he might, there was no way Kakashi could have avoided answering the given face with a lecherous wiggle of his eyebrows. “Which one are you referring to, sensei?” The low, long hum that dropped from the smirking lips was positively naughty in the jounin's honest opinion.

“Saa...both, naturally,” Iruka murmured and for a moment Kakashi was quite certain that the sliver of heat that passed in the man's dark, narrowed eyes that briefly locked their gaze with the jounin's lone gray eye wasn't carrying any violent but other rather passionate undertones in it.

In that sense, Kakashi could only blame his own awakening hormones for what came out of his mouth next. “...Would you like to see it, then?”

Through the silence, the jounin could hear the gears turn in the dark-haired chuunin's head, and not too many seconds after, the full lips were pulled into a wry smile on the scarred face. Then the slanted eyes gave a slow once-over at the copy-nin, and as he spotted the passing glint in the otherwise unreadable gaze, Kakashi knew that the teacher could indeed read underneath the underneath. “Interesting choice of words you have there, Kakashi-san.” Not paying much attention to the almost quiet huff escaping the masked lips, the younger shinobi turned his attention back to the starry sky that stretched above them. The lightly moving fingers fiddled with the smooth porcelain of the fragile cup, and for those who didn't know the two men better, the ambiance could have been described as peaceful as taking a long nap under the cherry blossoms.

However, they both knew better.

Having made his decision, Iruka turned the now almost coal black eyes to regard the jounin next to him with far more sober look that should have been allowed in the ex-ANBU's opinion. “...What's in it for you?”

“I get to see yours, of course.” Now that was something the chuunin wasn't apparently expecting if the resulting coughing fit was anything to go by. Aiming a sharp whack at the wheezing man's back, the jounin had a tiny moment of amused déja vu when the other stopped drowning into his sake. Knowing the vital points in the human body did have many benefits, indeed. “So, do we have an agreement here, Iruka-sensei?”

One finger was lifted to ask for a moment, which was no problem for the grinning jounin, and for a minute the teacher was given time to re-compose himself. Iruka blinked away the tears caused by both the asphyxiation and the burn of alcohol in his windpipe, poured himself a cup he figured he might indeed need when making deals with eccentric lightning users and then took a long breath to calm his still rebelling lungs. Well, at least his future corpse was now somewhat disinfected should he die during the next few hours. A tiny cough ripped its way out of his lungs and the academy instructor took a swig from the cup to silence his nowadays too noisy body. “What makes you think that I even want to see it?”

“Why wouldn't you then?” The bastard wasn't clearly drunk enough for thinking up such an answer.

“A shinobi has his reasons,” came the calmly spoken reply from the younger man, and not for the first time during their surreal mission, the gray eye sought out its dark counterparts and immersed itself into a spontaneous staring contest with them.

“How do you want this done?” The jounin's question struck between the two men like a lightning, and the darkened, steel-hard look in the narrowed, gray eye tattled Iruka that the next words that left him might just as well be his death-wish should he choose them poorly.

Like any shinobi given a challenge, the chuunin wasn't one to back off from it, though, and despite the hazy effect the alcohol had on his mind, Iruka could feel his spine straighten itself against the pillar he had been leaning against. “Since you requested it, you choose the method as well, Kakashi-san.”

Kakashi hadn't expected the other man to be so lenient with his idea. On the other hand, it was hardly only him that had started to wish to set things back on track concerning all the things that have happened to them together or separately. Now all that was needed was the right way to do it, and being who he was, Hatake Kakashi had already thought of it. “Twenty Cups and a match of rock-paper-scissors.”

Iruka swallowed carefully so as not to get yet another coughing fit. The jounin had to be kidding. “You do know that neither of us is Gai, right?”

“Yes, and I thank the gods for that every day. Are you game or not?”

Iruka fell silent over the other's rather witty remark. It seemed that they were starting more games that they might be able to finish, but he wasn't one to decline if the one-eyed wonder was ready to get his ass kicked into the next month. “I blame you if we end up in that tent, Kakashi-san.”

The smile that was visible in the jounin's mismatched eyes was on the same page with that threat. “I promise you you'll get the privilege to hunt me down if that happens unless Tsunade-sama gets me first.”

“You know how to make a man's day.” Iruka gave the jounin a passing smile and sat up straighter against the pillar while taking the sake bottle into his hand for further inspection. “We may need another bottle if we're really going for the Twenty Cups. This might last for ten only.”

“Already onto it,” was heard from the kitchen, and soon enough the fall of footsteps told Iruka that the needed beverage was on its way.

The secondary bottle was neatly put between them right next to the opened one, and then Iruka opened the held bottle in order to fill up their cups, only to halt in thought a few inches away from Kakashi's mug. “Apropos, you're having your mug, Kakashi-san. It could be difficult to measure the right amount and it's bad for the flow of the game. Was there any smaller cup for you to drink? We also need the chopsticks.”

“Give me a second, I'll check.” With that the silver-haired assassin staggered gracefully up and strode back to the kitchen, and Iruka had no complaints on the view he got to enjoy on the same run.

The darkening night was slowly filled with sounds of workers getting back to their homes and heading out for some moments of leisure in the bars, restaurants, clubs or the friends' houses where they could enjoy a night without bowing for the formalities all the time as it could happen when entering a place that was popular among their colleagues. As the summertime was finally starting to bloom properly over Konoha's Hidden Village, many of the night-time's adventurers were also keen to let themselves loose in many forms of drinking games as a modest celebration of yet again surviving the harsher winter season.

In the meantime, the men in the light-gray house were already getting a rather loud head-start.

“Foul!”

“OW! Oh come on, than wasn't fair!”

“All is fair in this- whoa- hey- YOW! That hurt!”

“Foul! Just drink it up and swallow like the big bad jounin you are, Kakashi-san,” Iruka snickered at the disgruntled looking, drunken jounin who took what seemed to be the man's tenth cup before calmly filling the cup once more and settling to glare at his smirking counterpart over the game grounds. Slowly, the both men extended their hand in which they held one chopstick, the piece of bamboo held in horizontal position upon the wooden surface, and ever so delicately placed it down to rest on the hard floorboards side by side. Only that the second their eyes met yet again over the sticks both the pale and the tan hands got into action, and both the chuunin and the jounin grabbed both the filled sake cup and the previously held chopstick and lunged at each other with the pointy end of the eating utensil pointing at the opponent's frontal lobe. In a matter of seconds, the sound of bamboo hitting porcelain and a pained groan mixed with each other and the inebriated men stilled to look at the score situation. As the things stood, Kakashi had managed to shield himself with the smaller cup he had found for himself, the chopstick that was held in the other nin's hand having struck at the smooth porcelain surface instead of the pale skin on the jounin's forehead.

The same couldn't be said for the teacher, though. The jounin's chopstick had hit the mark dead on on the dark-skinned forehead, and the sensei's sake cup was nowhere near to save the man's head from it's cruel penalty.

Kakashi gave a victorious chuckle. “Foul yet again, sensei. You're getting worse as the game moves on.”

“Shove it, Kakashi-san. I'm still leading in the points unlike someone I know,” Iruka growled and rubbed the hurting point that was definitely going to show on his skin in the morning. Getting an acupuncture on the forehead done with a blunt weapon while getting insanely drunk was without a doubt going to bite his ass the next day. Nevertheless, they were both enjoying themselves, and he wasn't going to spoil the good evening they've had so far.

“Maa, but that's already your ninth sake, sensei. The game is just about to get challenging.” As soon as the last word had been said, the game repeated itself and both of the men aimed the sticks at one another's heads. It was commonly known that if one ever wondered aloud what kind of drinking games shinobis enjoyed playing, the one asking would soon enough end up laughing his ass off in a gutter with a severe amnesia while sporting a more or less fatal wound in his body. Needless to say, ruthless profession demanded equally bizarre hobbies. Not that the ninjas actively searched for violent or scandalous games or pranks to make their time pass and to take their minds off from the past missions, but more from the fundamental mentality of them getting a bit too carried away during their free-time which is the result from performing the missions in a highly controlled mind set for most of their short lives.

Same was with the Twenty Cups. A harmless children's game in the past, now an occasionally deadly drinking game for those who didn't need their eyes on a mission so much. Of course, there had been ground rules established for the game so none of the Hokages had to worry that staying home would kill more of their soldiers than battling in the field, such as the 'no jutsu', 'no genjutsu', 'no intentional killing' and 'no drinking the other's sake even if you lost'. The last one did cost one unfortunate's knee cap before it was made into an official rule.

Not that either of the drunken men that were swaying on the wooden terrace could remember any of the said rules at that point anymore.

“Foul!”

“Shit!” Iruka cursed and downed yet another cup. It was getting more and more difficult for him to get his coordination straight, and the last time he had played the game he had nearly nailed Genma with his sake and drunk his chopstick in the last round. He couldn't afford the repeat performance of that little drunken story when he was facing one of the best men that happened to still be alive in their village. Kakashi was known for his good aim and fast weapon handling skills, and Iruka had gotten a taste of those in the past training sessions, so it wasn't looking good for his chances to win the older man's challenge.

Especially since that was his tenth cup as well.

“Ah, now we get to the point, neh? From now on every spill of sake counts as a foul as well.” The copy-nin's murmuring voice was as devious as ever whenever the man got one of his sadistic streaks. “Ready, sensei?”

Instead of answering, Iruka let his speed talk for him. The chopstick was in his hand before he had even let out the breath he had taken to calm his restlessly flexing muscles and the aim was already going straight for the pale forehead and the already reddened spot between the silvery eyebrows while the chuunin balanced himself on his one knee as the lithe tan body stretched itself within hitting reach. The sake cup in the other hand was kept in a firm grip and the highly sensitive nerve-endings of the teacher could feel the sloshing sake that was hitting the porcelain sides of its white prison. Then a chopstick flew past his head out of nowhere, and to his horror the teacher realized the jounin was going for a dirty game for toppling his cup and making him lose by that means. With a quick spin, the sensei spun on his knees and pulled the cup away from the attack route while at the same time kept going for his goal.

The sharp press of bamboo was felt against his forehead before he could even blink, and he could sense the victoriously smiling jounin going for the winning term.

Oh that wouldn't do, now would it?

“Fo-”

“Trade!” With a fast move to the right, Iruka moved his head away from the chopstick and hit the other's sake cup that was loosely held in the pale hand with his own bamboo utensil, successfully tipping the cup enough for a few drops of sake to escape their confines and land on the ex-ANBU's knuckles. “HA!”

The slurry blink spoke clearly for the older shinobi's stumbling thoughts. “Trade? What the hell is Trade?”

“That's a crucial part of the game, Kakashi-san. Don't you remember that? Whenever somebody's saying 'Foul' and thus winning the match by the rules, the opponent can turn the tables by saying 'Trade' and spilling the other's cup. The one shouting 'Trade' isn't allowed to go for the other's head, though, so the only chance to avoid losing is to make the other lose their drink. This is a rule that comes into the game after both players have reached the Tenth Cup, just like the 'no spilling' rule.” Iruka gave the confused man a victorious smirk. “And as the winner of the previous match, I say you drink up that cup and let me beat you in this properly.”

After a moment of consideration, the masked man gave an accepting nod at the new rule. He could always confirm that from Aoba later on. “Very well then. Best not to let you near my sake then. Let's see if your speed can match that tongue of yours, neh?”

“Better to bite than just bark, eh, Kakashi-san?” The movement of the trained hand was sloppy but still hadn't lost its refined edge as it kept the chopstick hovering above the wooden surface, waiting for its counterpart to join it.

A wolfish grin crept on the hidden lips, and despite the slight haze making it a bit difficult to sharpen his gaze, the gray eye narrowed its focus on the flushed, tan face just a couple of feet away. “Indeed, Iruka-sensei.”

Before the chopsticks could even properly touch the wooden floor, they were snatched back into the skilled hands and then flung at the opposing sides with drunken determination. In slow motion, Kakashi could see the chuunin dodge his attack from a mere half an inch away and then get a clear path for his head with the pointy stick. The Sharingan user didn't need any ocular jutsu to spot the smug look passing in the dark eyes when the younger nin saw his chances to win the match, and a breath from there he could feel the end of the bamboo press against his already painfully throbbing pale skin that had become slightly reddened on the spot where the chuunin had managed to land his hits. But, as the teacher had just said, the game wasn't all done at that point.

Iruka felt like dancing as he made yet another point for himself. It was the jounin's fifteenth cup and there was no way that the older man could handle so much liquor in order to beat him in the game. His dark eyes locked themselves on the calmly smiling, masked face, and before his muddled brain could alarm him that he was winning the match unhealthily easily which meant that he should pull away immediately, his mouth was already forming the syllables for the winning term. “Fou-”

The dark mask pooled around the long, pale throat, and the suddenly revealed, pale lips turned into a wolfish grin.

“Trade.”

Chapter Text

"Trade."

The single, softly spoken word echoed like a lightning bolt throughout the dark night air, and the pitch black eyes stared open wide at the sight that was presented to them only an arm's length away. A bit blurry, but an understandable view of a pale face nevertheless, and what a sight it was.

Too bad that Iruka's self-preservation instincts were hitting the top scores at that same moment. Otherwise he could have appreciated a bit more the mouth-watering being that sat just two feet away from him and that was leaning quite heavily against the chopstick the chuunin was still holding against the pale forehead. The men sat frozen on the spot, the black eyes measuring one another while the red orb chose to stay closed for further notice while the nocturnal sounds encircled the men with the chirps, coos and distant echoes erupting from the bustling urban nature around the light-gray house. To add some more to the fun aspects of his situation, the sensei found himself lost with his next decision if he should either push the pale-skinned, grinning bastard away and run for his life or take on the man's abruptly changed tactic and give the jounin a night to remember by his tan hands and eager lips.

True to his chakra nature, the jounin beat the chuunin to it.

Before he could even take a gasp of air, Iruka found himself being pushed down on his back on the terrace floor, the sake cup he had been holding falling from his hand and rolling across the wooden planks as his wrists were taken into an iron hold by the pale, strong hands. A gust of warm breath tickled his neck and cheek as the older man settled upon his pinned body, but none of the accumulating facts were the one that was putting his alarms into high alert.

It was the growing buzz of familiar electric current that he could already feel to take over his lower areas that were in contact with the sly jounin's body. The dark eyes turned to look at the bright blue wave that traveled steadily upwards on the tan body, erupting the chuunin's system into a frenzy on its wake, making Iruka's legs and hips flex in agitation as the nips of torturing lightning teased his heating skin. He could feel his body respond eagerly to the given stimulation, the dusky nipples hardening at the same speed as his cock inside the black training pants, his wanting lust growing out of hands with every passing second the jounin gave him with the electric blue fireworks that made his head dizzy.

"What am I to you, sensei?" Came the huskily whispered question from the jounin's direction and Iruka let out a sudden cry of pleasure as the pale man's frame rolled its hips against his, making him feel the throbbing erection the other was undoubtedly sporting in the dark gray sweatpants. The pale hands pinned his struggling arms firmer to the ground and the academy instructor gave yet another shout of ecstasy as his silver-haired captor increased the flow electricity running on his skin. To Iruka it felt like his whole body was devoured with the crackling blue lights and blinding pleasure, and the second his vision was swallowed by the blue shadows and white light he knew he wouldn't last long. He could feel the burning hot tremors crawl all over his trembling lips, swipe after swipe making his head swim as the deep indigo sizzles danced on the now damp and sweaty skin. The electric pressure against his mouth felt like a pair of needy lips seeking desperately for deeper contact with his mouth, and without any further thought Iruka felt his mouth to open and permit the searching lightning caress his tongue in a passionate kiss. His hips were on fire and the tell tale signs of one hell of an orgasm was building with too strong force inside his loudly singing body for him to keep it at bay any longer.

"Do you want me to chase you?"

The doors to the bedroom opened and a pair of stumbling men hit the floor as the one struggling to keep the couple upright missed a step in his haste and tripped over a pile of clean shirts that had masks attached to them. A flash of silver could be seen in the dark room as more conscious of the two men just barely managed to shield the other one who had been on his merry way down to the ground face first, both drunken bodies hitting the wooden floor with a pitiful thump.

The deafening screech of lightning that followed the said fall wasn't what the other one had been after with his rapidly failing attempts to keep the younger man away from harm, though, and the loud curse that was shouted by the masked lips was foul enough to nullify the wanton groan that was dropped from the sun-kissed full lips of the unconscious one that instinctively rolled his hips against the now utterly mortified older man who was counting the last seconds of his fraying sanity he was losing the more alarmingly the longer he kept contact with the lustful dark-haired demon.

The tan hands dug deep into the glowing skin beneath them and the wooden floor boards creaked with every thrust the narrow hips gave against the equally vigorous backside of the moaning chuunin. Fierce kisses were exchanged in the heat of the frantic fucking Iruka didn't even realize that he had missed so much over the lonely years, and the teacher could only hold on as he strong male body above his writhing form knew exactly where to touch in order to make him lose it with every single thrust of the hot, pulsing length that did wonders to his prostate in that specific angle.

By the time the fourth orgasm made the last remnants of his gray cells vanish into the blue sea of pleasure, Iruka couldn't any longer distinguish where he began and the other man ended. Not that it even mattered as long as the other kept on eating him like the hungry beast the man seemingly was.

A series of aggravated curses flew past the hidden lips that were bitten the next moment when the troubled jounin's body was hit with yet another blinding orgasm caused by the tan hands that suddenly took a hold of his posterior and gave it such a rough grope the jounin hadn't even known that the straight-laced sensei could indeed perform. By sheer willpower, the fervently gasping silver-haired man prevented his hands from strangling the handsy chuunin that was making it hard for them to reach the dark-haired man's bed. With a rougher move than intended (and gentler than he really would have liked to deliver), the pale, hard body pushed the tan one further away from it only to see the other's lean leg step onto one certain garishly colored Travel Volume No. 1, the well-worn cover of the thin book crinkling beneath the twisting heel.

Kakashi felt like killing himself. No, actually, he wanted to kill that wicked woman of a Hokage right that moment. They should have known better than to let themselves to be lured into her plots by free ramen and a box of alcohol. They had been none better than the rookies that were usually the ones to make such mistakes.

Comparing himself to genins did little to ease the homicidal urges that were bordering his hazy, drunken and blue-tinted mind.

"Ah! Oh kami, yes, ah, ah, AH! Deeper, please! AHH!" The hands roamed all over his willing body and having given up on counting his releases altogether, Iruka had lost himself into the feel of the other's body pumping in and out of his wanting ass. A hoarse scream ripped itself from his already abused vocal cords as the strike of lightning made him see beyond stars. He wanted.

He needed.

Kakashi was awe-struck. Not even an hour ago they were competing over the Twenty Cups he had been more than determined to win in order to finally make some sense into their situation, and now he was being tripped, pushed and toppled on a futon by the same man that had opposed all of the seven hells to get even close to the bed sheets with the now bewildered jounin. A chaos of sensations attacked his body and both his skin and muscles felt like being dipped into burning gasoline on the areas the younger man had touched, exploding the waves of heat that had already been teasing him into a magnitude of one hefty scorching tsunami. The firm hold on his ass taken by the strong hands was registered far too late for him to do anything about it, and momentarily his vision took on a blue filter obscuring all the natural lights and shadows from his mismatched eyes while he felt his body being roughly pulled off from the mattress only to be pressed flush against the lean frame of the heavily panting younger man.

The husky groan next to his ear and the needy whimper escaping the chuunin's full lips were the last things his mind was capable of categorizing before a hand took a slightly hurting hold on his wild mane of silver hair and a forceful pair of lips pressed against his masked ones, promptly making all of his brain activity die for a second. His back met the futon once more, far more violently than before, but somewhere in the back of his rapidly collapsing mind Kakashi could care less as he felt the greedy tongue of the other man swipe hungrily against the dark cloth that was still covering his face. His lower regions had long ago decided to drop the resistance against the electric pulses ravishing his body, the wanton, throbbing ache making a low, rumbling growl of lust erupt from his masked throat. The sudden feel of an other set of hips grinding heavily against his own was more than convincing for him to lose himself into the cacophony of pleasure the other man was seemingly enjoying, the low moans and breathless gasps filling the jounin's ears to the brim.

Hell, he wasn't even sure if he could remember his family name anymore.

Iruka bit back a needy whimper as he felt the other's arousal twitch inside him, sending an army of delicious tremors doing wicked things in his own groin and pushing his body to press more against the fine muscular specimen of male anatomy that he had managed to capture. All he could see was blue light and flickers of almost blinding white every time a new wave of sinfully intoxicating electricity ran down his body, but he didn't give a rat's ass about that matter since he had far more interesting things to concentrate on. The rolling movement of his hips increased the moment his ears caught on a muffled growl falling from the lips moving against his, the building feeling of an undoubtedly rewarding orgasm filling his very being and driving him to push the burning lust to the very limit within him-

Without further warning, the curtain of darkness descended upon his severely sidetracked consciousness.

Wheezing for air, Kakashi slumped against the mattress, the back of his head resting against the solid surface while the spinning mind of the genius shinobi sought solace in the cool feel of linen against his heated skin. His lungs burned from the lack of oxygen, and to compensate that he took in deep gulps of air, feeling like a fish on dry land, while at the same time he hoped that the possibility of fainting due to getting almost suffocated because of one frisky chuunin kissing the daylights out of him could be avoided.

Numbly, the trembling, pale hands were dropped down to his sides, and the gray, narrow eye risked a glance at the unconscious man that had dropped atop the uncontrollably shaking body of one Konoha's leading jounins after the shinobi had been knocked out by two vicious blows to the temples. Agonizingly slowly, the shaking pale hands took a weak grip on the limp body laying on top of the panting jounin, and with more effort than he should be putting into moving a dead weight that was roughly the same size as he was, the exhausted jounin managed to roll the mission desk worker on the other side of the narrow mattress, the gray eye staring absentmindedly as the dark-haired head lolled drunkenly from one side to the other as the chuunin's clothed body stilled on the dark sheets. Weakly, the pale hands took a hold on the jounin's own training pants, and even without lifting the waistband he could very well guess what kind sight was going to greet his hurting eyes in his boxers.

Hitting someone on the head after they had just awoken from an electric shock that had been accidentally given to their frontal lobe wasn't the smoothest way to handle the situation, granted, but at least it was apparently more effective than the pathetic attempts to drag one intoxicated, disoriented and furthermore disturbingly horny chuunin into a bedroom, maneuver the man onto a futon, and furthermore doing all that without any bloodshed nor ravishing the willing drunkard the moment when the honorifics flew off the table.

He should have done that the instant the chuunin had begun to stir from the terrace floor.

He was floating.

Or sinking, perhaps.

It didn't matter.

The dark blue world that surrounded him was as silent as a grave, and after a moment of consideration, the dark brown eyes were fully opened and they gave an examining look around the taut body, as it sank deeper down into the intense blue. His muscles felt weightless and not a single sound came as he snapped his fingers together next to his ear, only the shift of air telling him that he had even moved them since there was no sensation of feeling the fingertips rub against each other.

That could be his cue to get nervous about his situation.

Then a pair of arms circled him from behind, and slowly Iruka felt himself settle against a solid chest and stomach of another person. The pulse of warmth that traveled through him was inviting and made him feel safe, despite his nagging logic saying that he didn't have the faintest idea to whom the arms holding him belonged.

The nimble fingers brushed down his chest and let a wave of tremor run over his sensitized skin, and Iruka closed his eyes as his systems started to respond to the faint touches that were given to his bare upper and lower body. He felt like an instrument that was held by the professional hands, the adventuring fingers knowing which note to play in order to make his body hum in delight.

"Do you want me to chase you, sensei?"

..He had heard that question before somewhere. Why couldn't he remember? Lifting his gaze, Iruka was suddenly greeted with an identical image of himself being held by a pair of arms. Nothing more. Just arms.

Two rather familiar armored arms, to be more precise.

The mirror image dissolved into nothing the moment the widening dark eyes caught onto a striking white porcelain mask with red marks to appear behind his shoulder, the hands holding him tightening their grip on his suddenly tensing body. Not wasting a second, the chuunin's hands were pulling and struggling against the steel-hard hold the other man had on him, and silent curses flowed past his lips as the academy teacher fought for his freedom from the masked assassin whose mellow voice was slowly taking over his mind, the warmly speaking tone repeating the said question over and over again until it was hard to separate the murmured words from each other. Then a raspy gasp of air was taken by the masked man, and briefly concerned what the other had in mind for him, Iruka turned to look at the mask's direction amidst his struggles.

What he saw made his blood turn cold.

Answering his look were two gleaming eyes that had a clear and cold blue tint inside them, and what was enough to send a freezing shiver shaking the sensei's whole frame was the predatory grin that slowly spread on the white mask, it revealing rows of deadly sharp teeth in the mask's mouth of which Iruka was quite certain that it didn't usually belong in the regular ANBU mask.

Not that he got to stroll further down that path of logic before the revealed teeth sank into his shoulder and made his mouth tear open into a muted scream of shock. An assault of desire flooded into his veins through the fierce fangs biting into his flesh, the chuunin feeling his strength and resistance leave him with a faint gasp that escaped him when the second bite done by the white mask pierced the skin on his neck. His whole being was set into a numb swirl of sensations when the arms took almost a bruising hold onto him, the armor's edges digging painfully into his skin that had started to feel feverish and nauseous at the same time.

"It's dangerous to arouse a man's lust for the things they have bad, sensei", growled the mask against his sweating skin and thus gaining the attention of the half-conscious chuunin. As if being drunk, Iruka rolled his head to the side and gave a narrow glare at the mask that still held its teeth sunk into his skin. He felt like he had to say something back. Anything to chase the odd creature off his case. With the renewed resolve, the frowning mouth opened to deliver a rather nasty comeback for the smugly grinning mask-

only to blurt out a blob of a black substance down to his chest. The chuunin watched in muted horror as the black liquid traveled over his chest, stomach, hips and genitals, making a suffocating weight settle on the areas it had smeared on its way down the gradually tensing body. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't break free-!

"You're scared of me, sensei."

Shocked, the bleary brown eyes shot up to meet with the lone gray eye that was peering him over the dark mask. The quietly speaking voice was gruff and laced with something very distinct Iruka had always thought being out of the other's reach, seeing the man always so detached and light-worded. The realization made an excited shiver run down his neck and take over his upper back, especially the particular, still unbitten spot which had sported an imprint resembling a row of teeth once. His gut was set into stormy frenzy of butterflies the moment the pale fingers stroked across the black-smeared abdominal area, setting the nether regions of the now panting chuunin into an anarchy yet to be experienced for the usually well-controlled teacher who was passing the limits beyond mortification as he could feel rather than see his body to shamelessly arch more open for the jounin to catch a view on his uncovered better bits. His half-lidded gaze registered the downright obsessed look gleaming in the narrow, steel-hard gray eye and before his mind had caught up with his libido and restrained it back into submission, the full lips parted with a shaky breath.

Slowly, the pale fingers reached for the edge of the mask, and Iruka could feel his heart thunder like a war drum in his throat. Ever so carefully, the fingers smoothed the dark fabric that ran over the pale nose, and then they curled around the highest edge. "What am I to you, sensei..?"

Two sets of teeth sank into his flesh before he could even register that the jounin had removed the mask from the pale face, leaving him with a scream of flaring pleasure as his only company when everything else turned black inside him.

What Iruka wasn't prepared for, though, was to suddenly realize himself staring at a familiar, dark bedroom in which was also located the futon he oddly enough found himself sitting on, the dark eyes wild and wide with panic as the last remnants of what seemed to be one hell of a nightmare still made it their business to keep his pulse beating to the maximum levels. His lungs hurt for some reason and his throat had had better days, not to mention him getting slowly more aware that his heart beats had never before sounded so unsteady as they currently did. Swallowing down the rising nausea that played a match of table tennis with his gut, Iruka concentrated on calming his breathing with long intakes of breath, the chuunin gradually setting his body from high alert down to more suitable levels of adrenaline. The dark-haired head was then cradled between two shaking hands, and despite his loudly thrumming ears, the genin instructor somehow achieved to reach the normal frequency for the sounds being heard from the environment, although not without some difficulties.

As a further notice, his whole head felt like it would explode at any minute.

Then, as the last final blow to his already screwed up memories concerning the latest events of the previous hours, the feel of something sticky coating his damp skin caught the suffering man's attention.

Chapter Text

The earliest rays of dawn crept upon the still slumbering village, the bright, colorless light of early summer illuminating the glimmering drops of water dripping from the drainpipes, windowsills, roof tiles and power lines crisscrossing the scenery. The silence savoring the last passing minutes it had at its disposal before the streets, alleys and households would be filled with the everyday sounds of a busy village. Not a cough would be missed by its keen attention, which was precisely why it found its interest piqued on its way past one innocent-looking light-gray house. Having no sense of discretion, it slipped beneath the high fence wall, snuck across the damp yard and carefully slithered inside the silent house. As it set its immaterial foot on a cool terrace, dismissed the scattered empty bottles, cups and chopsticks, and pushed itself inside the dark, large room with mats on the floor, the air thickened around the odd guest on its way to find the source of the odd noise that had disturbed its calm morning stroll. By two shut sliding doors, it soon found what it had been looking for.

A shaky gasp echoed from the wet tiles that expanded over the modest bathroom walls and floor, soon enough being accompanied with strangled chokes colored by swallowed groans and curses that replaced the oxygen with something heavier in the steamy, humid room. The sound of running water hitting a well-built body fell into the background as the more human sounds erupting from the said figure created an incoherent soundtrack within the otherwise monotonous sound. Pale lips were bitten fervently as yet another gasp managed to force its way out of the heavily panting mouth, the usually hidden rows of teeth gritting harshly together in a vain attempt to keep the silence undisturbed by the dropping sounds of arousal that had made their minds on letting their neighbors know that they had a party they wouldn't mind the others joining. The pale hands trembled from exhaustion, one of the hands twitching against the slippery tiles before the shallowly panting body while the other fought to maintain a steady rhythm of strokes against the slick skin of heated flesh it had managed to get a hold on to.

As the last wave of a mind-shattering completion made his knees buckle, Kakashi let his body slump against the cold wall of the shower stall, and forced his slowing hand to drop limply to his side. Breathing hard, the jounin kept his dazed eyes staring at nothing in particular and concentrated on feeling the cool tiles against his feverish skin, letting the final remnants of the blue spots dance away from his vision while his heart tried to find its usual place again in his chest. Absentmindedly, the dead-tired jounin listened to the lukewarm drops of water tapping against his dropped shoulders, the cool pearls tickling the slowly rising and falling back, then traveling down his flexing thighs and at the back of his knees before joining their kin on the merry flow down the drain, the steady hush of shower permitting the genius to drift his spinning mind into a vast, undefined space...which at the moment was something he would have very much preferred instead of being trapped inside a small bathroom that shared a wall with a room he didn't feel like stepping into for the rest of his current mission if things kept going to the same disastrous direction they were at the very moment. The pale hands curled into weak, shaking fists, and the narrow, gray eye was shut when the briefly subsided tweaks of excruciating pain stabbed the silver-haired man's temples as he spent a relatively quiet moment to reflect his present predicament. Soon enough, the first memories took over the empty space inside his head.

The look in the dark brown eyes had burned like a branding iron into his self-control when he had locked eyes with the smugly smirking chuunin who had pressed his chopstick against his currently throbbing forehead, and for all his defense in a situation that had begun to show its merciless nature towards his pitiful mortal being, Kakashi could have sworn to have aimed at the grinning bastard's sake with his own stick. At least until he had seen the passing challenge in the teacher's eyes.

The pale fingers curled around the cold metal faucets and turned the shower off, leaving the silently cursing man alone with his thoughts as the echo of spraying water died away.

..Do you want me to chase you, sensei?

The thought had been out in his mind before he had even registered it, and as if all the tension he had somewhat managed to keep at bay over their drunken banter and the current competition had suddenly decided to skip the protocol and create its own rules, Kakashi had felt his hand muscles twitch and flex into new life, and before he had realized it, his whole body had changed the aim in the middle of his strike. The instant bolt of lightning that had hit his hand suddenly holding the stick to the other man's head hadn't even crossed his mind as a possibility to happen during their game. The jounin gave a weak groan to the bathroom around him as the blurry memories showed him the utterly shocked look flashing in the dark eyes before Iruka had been struck to the ground from the electric impact hitting squarely the man's forehead. Surely enough, the game was immediately dropped and Kakashi had hurried to take a look at the man's probable injuries, already trying to sober himself up enough for summoning Tsunade for yet another emergency call. At first that option had seemed like the only choice Kakashi would be given as the knocked-out chuunin didn't even as much as twitch when he had called the man's name upon the still figure.

Then, for a reason still odd to him, Kakashi had started to pay his half-panicked half-drunken attention to a whole other list of things that he was presented by the sight of one passed-out Umino. The man's dark ponytail had opened completely from the shock of lightning hitting through every fiber in the man's body, the dark strands of hair spilling all over the tan man's face, shoulders and the wooden floor beneath him. The dark eyes were hidden behind the closed eyelids, and the full lips were parted open as if still holding onto the word they had been forming before their chance had been ruthlessly taken away. Before his muddled, numb and intoxicated mind had managed to put any sense to his certified insanity, Kakashi had leaned his head down over the unconscious man, his masked lips hovering just an inch away from their alluring counterparts, and, without giving any thought on what his mouth was suddenly murmuring, the softly whispered question had fallen as a shaky breath from his dry mouth. For his greatest surprise, the jounin had actually hoped that the man beneath him had heard what he had asked.

Then he had made the fatal mistake of touching the man.

The absurd memories following the said grave mistake knocked the pale-skinned man's hurting head once again, and the jounin let out a suffering growl at his hormones for opening him a path of irrational mistakes that had now led him into more than just a sticky situation. He had been so caught up with the good eyeful he had taken on the other man that the buzz of electricity gave no warning before it had left his fingertips, not really calming things down when he had seen what his touch had awakened in seconds regarding the dark-haired demon's body. After that, if he had even thought about settling their matters then and there, the chuunin's horny ambush had made sure that whatever he had been wanting to discuss or do with the man was efficiently erased from his to-do list with one swift swipe. Or with one demanding kiss devouring his hidden mouth, to be more precise.

He should have knocked the dark-haired head one more time at the exact second the dark brown eyebrows had twitched on the chuunin's forehead.

But, alas, he didn't, and now it was time to face the surreal consequences. Seeking support from the wall, the lightly hiccuping jounin staggered to fetch the much needed towel now that the burning heat inside his hips wasn't keeping him warm any longer, and on his passing way, the gray eye gave a fleeting glare at the dirty clothes that had been dumped into the laundry basket, the pair of kunai-decorated boxers standing out amidst the black clothes in their cum-coated glory, as if mocking the genius assassin for failing to keep his cool in the hands of one chuunin gone out of control. With more force than needed, the jounin opened the cabinet doors, pulled out a new towel and rubbed himself dry, only to regret his rough movements later on as the floor tilted beneath his legs while he dried off his mop of hair. An aggravated curse that was made out of new levels of frustration ever known to him was muffled into the towel as yet another wave of pain jabbed its senbons through the skull of the peeved shinobi. After that, the curse turned into a low, tortured moan.

...Now that he thought about it, why on earth did he even think that he would have been able to tuck the other in bed for a sleep in the first place?

The pale shoulders leaned against the chilly tiles in defeated manner.

He had been so close to forget all of his principals and just take on the offer the younger nin was more than willingly giving him, no matter if they had both been way past any coherent thoughts. Yet another towel-smothered growl left the pale man as a spike of arousal made a reappearance in his groin section. He was quite sure there shouldn't be any more stuff left in him until the next week, so why did his body still respond to every little stimuli? A gut-turning twist shook his lean frame, and a poorly stifled mixture of a pained groan and a hiccup dropped itself from the unmasked mouth.

Having passed out on the same futon with the younger man wasn't really putting any odds on his side. The pale body gave a shudder at the memory of waking up not only to an infernal headache but also to the feel of a slumbering, hot body next to him, sensing the warm breath of the sleeping sensei brush against his neck and doing horrible things to the already dirtied insides of his pants when the first pang of desire had taken over his body. Not that the feel of Iruka's quite vivid lower section pressing itself against his lower back was offering any help for that matter, making the wave of pure, raw lust hit his body like a tidal wave at the feel of the hard appendage digging into his wrinkled pants fabric.

Hence the earlier minutes spent on tiring out his stamina in order to avoid doing some unthinkable things to the chuunin still snoozing in the room next door, and thus the present glaring contest one of the best jounins in the hidden village of Konoha was now having with his rebellious anatomy.

With a long, heavy sigh, the pale-skinned back straightened and the pale hands secured the white towel around the narrow hips, ignoring the needy length tenting the soft cloth as the former Hound started to mentally go through his ANBU codex. He had managed to gain a perfect control over his body over the years and he wasn't going to start losing the basics of his training now. Suddenly, as if doing its best to prove the jounin completely wrong on things concerning the facts of life, his whole body broke into a cold sweat as yet another blurry memory unexpectedly hit him on the head, this time from a different encounter with the same unpredictable chuunin who at that time was even more out of their plane of existence than the previous night. The pale hands holding the towel gave the tiniest jerk as the almost forgotten words of the younger man surfaced his mind, making Kakashi almost double over when the whirlwind of mixed emotions decided to play lottery with heavy stone marbles inside his gut. The gray eye was shut against the agony that made a demolition demonstration inside his head with a sledgehammer, and both the ex-ANBU's hands and legs wailed from the steel-hard tensing of the muscles as the man fought to stay swaying somewhat upright on the wobbly floor.

The gurgling bubble of a severely nauseous hiccup was the only warning he got.

The whole room was spinning around him. That or he had suddenly lost the control of his head, whichever was more plausible at that second. Not that it made any difference concerning the infernal pain that had taken it as its mission to make staying conscious appear like the worst decision he had made in his life. With a shaky, long breath, Iruka settled himself sitting more upright (he couldn't be sure though, unless sitting straight nowadays meant that the floor went vertical) on what indeed seemed to be his futon, and spent a minute or two trying to convince his muddled brain that the earth in the Fire Country didn't move in waves the last time he had taught geography to his students. To add more facts to make his head hurt even more than it already did, it was dark around him, meaning that either it was early in the morning or he had yet again slept through one or two days, a hypothesis which did little to ease his slowly rising bad mood. He hated to wake up all disoriented, even more so when the state of impromptu vertigo didn't seem to have the slightest intention to stop messing with his sense of direction anytime soon. If he didn't know better, he would already go through the options of being poisoned - now why the hell did he feel so itchy and sticky underneath his clothes?

Giving his still somewhat clothed body a wondering glare, the chuunin peeled up his dark tank top and peered with unfocused eyes at the unnerving oddity of his body being covered with something that had already dried on his damp skin and itched like hell, carrying a faint scent of something Iruka knew that he really should be able to recognize. For some reason, the strange sensations grew even worse inside his pants the moment the tan body shifted on the rumpled linen, the wrinkled and sweaty fabric scraping against his body in a way that was making sure that the bingo row for his probable moods was getting closer to 'pissed' instead of 'puzzled'. Before any ideas of what could be stuck to his skin came into his dizzy mind, a new attack of piercing headache made him almost fall down on his back, and a peeved groan fell from the grimacing mouth as his hands rose to nurse the dark-haired head. What in the seven hells had happened to him during the past hours?

Then, the dark eyes peeled open to cast a wondering look around him...where was -

A muffled groan filtered through the wall from the bathroom's direction, and in a blink, Iruka's pulse started to hammer a few hundred miles per minute while the upper part of his body decided to run a test blush on his suddenly overheating skin. That particular sound was unexpected, unheard of and unbelievably sinful in Iruka's opinion, and he had to swallow a loud curse as a rather strong pulse of electrified lust went straight into his nether regions and gave his cock a long, greedy lick on its way. More than that, the abrupt flood of blurry memories that answered his earlier, silently asked question made the lick turn into a breathtaking suck, and for a moment the now heavily panting academy instructor was almost sure that he had briefly lost the feel of his arms and legs, the suddenly tensed limbs trembling uncontrollably against the onslaught of hazy visual images replaying themselves before Iruka's closed eyes while the ghosts of a dark, low voice murmured dirty things into his ears and made his breath hitch. When a particular whisper made his heart flutter, a shaky moan left the full lips.

... Do you want me to chase you, sensei?

Before his mind had caught up on the fact that he had moved, Iruka had already stepped out of the bedroom.

The wall of lightning that sent him flying straight back into the said room wasn't expected, though.

A rather loudly shouted curse flew past his sharply ringing ears, and feeling more than just sufficiently blown out of his mind as he laid heaving on the hardwood floor, Iruka focused to make his lungs work again while making a futile effort to see what exactly had made his body discard its physical laws for a second. A flash of silver caught his bleary eyes, as well as a rather impressive amount of pale, naked skin, before hurried stomps of footsteps took off into an other direction and thus left the baffled, choking chuunin alone with his hurting conundrum. With an agonized hiss, Iruka rolled onto his side, made a mental note to take a long trip to the hot-springs if he ever survived through whatever it was that was happening to him, and slowly gathered himself up from the floor. At least now he had a decent idea on the substance that was pretending to be a questionable version of frosting on his body, granted, but providing some more of it inside his trousers in the last four seconds hadn't been the first thing to do on his list for the day. Furthermore, he wasn't sure if he could even stand up now that most of his blood had grown to like his loins more than the places it was supposed to fill on daily basis.

As he got up on his shaking knees, the taste of gastric acid was a second too late to warn him.

Beside the Icha Icha series, the Shinobi Codex [1] was the second most read piece of literature among the shinobi population, as it was something all working in the said profession were given the joyful pleasure of getting drilled into their thick heads at the beginning of their ninja training. It was vastly known, highly detested and ever so often the most used resource for getting enough dry paper to start a fire in challenging conditions, which was the most common reason why so many shinobis carried it inside their weapon pouches in the first place. Nevertheless, despite their shared hatred towards an object consisting of ink and paper, many of them knew the scribbled strategy chapters and rank rules by heart and even found some of the old anecdotes, references and history reviews useful in their missions, whether they wished it or not. Of course, as their village had grown and their hierarchy systems had developed into what it currently was from the ancient times, some had taken it as their task to update the rank literature system and to produce separate books for the genins, chuunins, jounins and ANBU for that matter, claiming that the professional quality of their nins would improve profoundly through the separate booklets as well.

At that point, even the ANBU had concluded that there were people crazier than them in the village.

To Kakashi's displeased note, though, none of the aforementioned books withheld a chapter concerning the dangers of getting himself an elemental hangover, which could have saved his intestines that currently curled around themselves for the third time within five minutes as a sharply cutting jab of electrified agony attempted to rip out his spine for the second time he hurled into the toilet seat.

If someone had ever said that one day the notorious copy-nin would spend his mission half-naked on a cold floor while wearing nothing else than a wet towel and sporting both a hellish hangover and a steel-hard erection that ever so often made him spill streams of what felt like liquified lightning out of his stomach, then Kakashi would have certainly thought that it would happen on the same day when his retirement letter hit his mail box.

As the things stood, though, rather than the chance of spending his remaining years as an inactive jounin pestering the younger generations with his inane stunts, the highly trained assassin was far more interested in the wonderful possibility of dying on the said cold floor before facing what seemed to be his awakened mission partner who he had literally ran into on his way to spill out his guts, and whom he had apparently all but thrown back to their shared bedroom with his startled reaction for bumping bodies with the younger nin. The crack of lightning that had hit the dark-haired chuunin wasn't intentional, but Kakashi doubted if his body was at that moment even vaguely aware of the word 'polite' while being on its way to make his days miserable for an indefinite amount of time during his all the while shortening life. With a tortured sigh, the pale body released its hold on the cool porcelain and slid backwards to lean against the wall facing the recently flushed toilet seat, and a few thickly swallowed seconds later, the gray eye opened up to cast a pleading look at the flickering light on the room's ceiling (while absently noting that fluorescent lights weren't really the most gentle option for hurting eyes). Whoever was having their guard duty right now among the gods of shinobis, this was the time to look to the other way and give Kakashi an opportunity to rid himself of the throbbing antagonist that was making it impossible to keep his integrity intact. He may need to apologize Future later on for ruining their undoubtedly brilliant plans, but right now the irresponsible six-point-four inches located between his legs had surpassed the urgency level of many S-class nins in his personal Bingo Book.

Much to the Future's relief, before Kakashi could put his gloomy thoughts into action, the toilet door was torn open and an other pair of feet stumbled into the small space occupied by the now shocked jounin. The apologizing, albeit slightly startled, look passing the wide dark eyes wasn't missed, and stunned, Kakashi observed just how gracefully Iruka could actually dive on his knees and take a good hold onto his messy dark hair before dumping his flushed head into the delightfully echoing bowl of white porcelain that came with plumbing. For once, the jounin didn't feel like giving the sick man any remarks but instead concentrated solely on hiding his current state of arousal from the other's view and fixing his own breathing while at the same time worked double time for shutting down his sensitive ears when the first sounds of prompt vomiting were heard from the other man's direction. Given that he was now sitting next to a man with whom he had had one-sided sexual encounter twice, who he had electrocuted more than the average missing nin on a rough day and who, by the sound of it, was opening up his vocal cords in a very similar manner as he had done a minute ago, Kakashi could almost hear the clack of his mail box.

After what seemed like the fourth attempt on heaving out his lungs for the heck of it, Iruka finally lifted his head up from the depths of the toilet seat and let a long, pained groan release itself from the back of his hurting throat while the man sat on his heels and let the seemingly sweaty forehead to seek solace on the cool, smooth surface of their common new friend of household furniture that helped them to keep their floors clean. “Oh...kami...please tell me I'm about to die soon.”

Against all odds, a meek chuckle found its way to Kakashi's lips at the man's mumbled words, making the jounin wince a second later as his ribcage clearly wasn't in a mood for some fun just yet. “I'm afraid that death is a luxury men like us can't afford, Iruka-sensei.” Then, as if to agree with him, the new wave of head-splitting mixture of pain and arousal made the pale assassin break his records in reaching his goals under pressure. Without further warning, the pale hands took a hold of the still shaking broad shoulders and not even listening to the horrified shout coming from the surprised younger shinobi, the ex-ANBU captain effectively removed the tan body away from the immediate danger of getting some undesired projectiles splattered on it and then passed the turn to his malfunctioning digestion system. Somewhere in the back of his head, Kakashi really didn't give a damn if it was a moan or a groan he just heard in the background, but the spark of lightning that had erupted from his hands the second his fingers had curled around the strong bicep of the younger nin's arm did do some strange things to his wailing stomach. After the loud screech of thousand birds had finally died from the claustrophobically tiny room, the jounin found himself hoping that the words in the aforementioned letter had at least a nice typography.

With a gurgling growl, Kakashi plopped backwards on his backside and once more leaned his hurting head against the wall, giving no one in particular a tiny nod of reassurance on him still being alive before settling completely still to gather both his breath and his wits, the mismatched eyes firmly closed against the irritatingly flickering fluorescent light. The answering grumble arising from the younger man's direction made the pale lips pull themselves into what tried to resemble a wince of sympathy on the sweaty face. After a beat of listening to a variety of stomach-turning sounds that filled the air between the two suffering men, a more pronounced growl left the dark-haired teacher, and Kakashi opened his gray eye to watch silently as the man's shoulders first tensed and then dropped lax in the semi-hunching position the younger nin had yet again taken next to the toilet seat. The following silent sigh was enough to tell Kakashi to pay attention to his colleague. A minute later, the awaited discussion entry was given.

“...What the hell was in that sake?”

Knowing who they both were, the question was taken rhetorically. “...Maa, it might be a shorter list of what wasn't in it”, Kakashi drawled and felt his throat constrict both at the act of chasing words out of his mouth and the thought of drinking anything in the next few hours. Then the gray eye narrowed its look at the toilet seat when the jounin placed the chips on the game table. “I'm actually more concerned about the ramen.”

The change of air around the jounin's wheezing counterpart screamed loud and clear. “...It was a bit too sweet, wasn't it.”

Even though he knew that the other didn't currently see him nod, Kakashi let his head dip down as an affirmative gesture.

A low rumble of severe annoyance resounded from the heavily breathing chuunin's chest. “I'll kill that woman.”

A fleeting attempt of a malevolent smirk tugged the jounin's pale lips.”...Let's see if you have enough bits left of her to kill after I've gotten out of this house.” A passing, breathless chuckle tinted with malicious undertones came from the dark-haired shinobi and made the smirk turn into a full grin on the copy-nin's face. In silence, both the jounin and the chuunin spent a couple of minutes on pulling their acts back together, neither of the men willing to provoke their bodies to gang up further against them. Then slowly, the tan fingers let go of the toilet seat, the sensei twisted to the side and then carefully scooted to slump against the wall a couple of feet away from the pale man.

Panting, the dark-skinned shinobi turned his aching head slowly to the side to cast a look at the equally pained-sounding jounin. “More than that, are you still alive, Kakashi-san?”

The pale hands rose to swipe the thin sheet of sweat from the strong jaw and pale cheekbones before a dry chuckle left the older man's lips, the hands rubbing the messy mop of now damp silver hair before dropping themselves to cover the still hurting mismatched eyes. “As much as you seem to be, sensei. How many painkillers we still have in the bathroom? I think I could use a-” The words were left hanging in the air when Kakashi registered an odd flare in presence from the chuunin's side, and the gray eye was cautiously opened beneath the pale hand to give a look at the surprisingly silent sensei, only to lock gazes with the blankly staring dark eyes. A wondering silvery eyebrow rose on the jounin's face. “What? Is there something on my - ”

In Iruka's eyes the whole situation seemed to morph happening in slow motion, as he could clearly see how the fair skin of the jounin turned almost white before it got swallowed by a vividly red blossom of a fierce blush that took over the now stunned-looking elite's pale features. Amidst those eternally long ticks of time, Iruka also gradually realized that he had indeed all but ogled for a good couple of minutes at one of the most guarded secrets many of their village's shinobis had been dying to reveal - and that the said secret was now all but staring back at him with wide, thunderstruck eyes.

It took a while for the shell-shocked jounin to understand that there was an empty space before his eyes on the spot which just recently had a dead-silent chuunin sitting on the tiled toilet floor.

The silence was scared half-dead from its investigations on the scattered sake cups and bottles as a loud bam of bathroom doors echoed inside the light-gray house, instantly followed by a sharp burst of water as one of the showers was turned on.

During his steadily rolling career, Iruka had attended many strategy negotiations, both in the field, the Academy and in the Hokage's office. Most of the counseling situations had required quick thinking and seeing the problem from all possible angles since usually time was running out for someone somewhere at those moments. Moreover, Iruka was pleased to see that many of his students took after him on viewing the given situations to the most absurd detail. Sometimes things got too hectic to do that, naturally, so with sufficient training most chuunins reached the level where the top three options for solving the problem were usually the best ones, no matter how many more of them could be thought out. For the elite, that amount was already abundance.

With all things considered, having an emergency meeting with himself being the only attendant in a bathroom that currently smelled heavily of sexual frustration and the dirty fantasies fueling it hadn't really crossed his mind as something that could indeed occur on a joined mission with their village's top-notch jounin. Taking a quivering breath, he turned off the already cold shower and rested his hurting forehead against the smooth tiles. Spent and aching, the tan hands rested limply on the shower knobs, and his shaking knees gave a cautious heads up for still being able to hold up his weight for the next fifteen minutes, after which their obligations would fly out of the figurative window. Slowly, the dark eyes closed and the expressive eyebrows were drawn into a pensive frown as the silently panting man went over the bizarre facts he had managed to gather so far from his morning.

Firstly, he had been fully dressed when he had woken up, and his ass didn't hurt from any strategically important areas, so it was relatively safe to conclude that the strange flashes of the arrogant jounin fucking him silly on the terrace floor were most probably a twisted wet dream mixing with reality. On the other hand, if that didn't happen, then what the hell did happen?

Since secondly, his body had given him the same treatment as it had done after his first, similar sexual encounter with whatever that was back then when he had lost two days out of his life, which was a fun fact that still kept coming onto him. In that case, it was starting to look possible that the overruling libido of his was tightly connected to his occasionally dysfunctional gut. With that new epiphany thrown into the equation, the now cursing chuunin could bet half of the village that the aftermath for his reckless body was far from being over when his element was considered.

Thirdly, he had seen Kakashi's face.

Swallowing thickly, the chuunin fought in vain against the steady rise of heat that took over his cheeks and chest at the memory of that particular visual candy he had accidentally laid his eyes on. Admittedly, he had been close to pass the turn to his hands and mouth as well at that point. On that minor trip down the path of fantasies, the strong fingers tightened their hold on the faucets. The silver-haired bastard was attractive to the capital A, with that strong, just rightly angled jaw, those taunting lips -oh, those lips - and the most adorable version of a lopsided smile Iruka had never even thought to associate with the ex-ANBU. Sure, the mismatched eyes could smile, but after seeing that pale psycho to give an actual smile, the crinkle of the man's eyes had started to appear more like a nasty twitch rather than an attempt to display human emotions. A cold shudder traveled down the scarred back, and Iruka stepped to the towel racks to snatch the nearest towel which hopefully pushed down the rising blush from his shoulders and neck as he dried his body off. Truth to be told, he had already seen the upper half of the other man's masked face, which had been a sight to stare in itself, so when that was taken into consideration, he should have already anticipated that the lower half wouldn't be too bad to look at either.

The only problem was, though, if he would still live after accidentally stepping over their unsaid boundaries. More than anything, the silver-haired man had looked positively horrified to have his face seen. The dark brown, narrowed eyes gave sidelong glances at the closed bathroom doors on his both sides, one leading to the corridor and the two to the training room, and after not sensing anyone close enough to count as a threat, Iruka took another minute to brainstorm more on his present predicament. Against his initial thought, the jounin hadn't come after him yet and beaten the shit out of him, so either the genius had suffered a stroke and he'll find the man dead on the toilet floor, or, more likely, the man was currently forming a plan to get his head on a silver platter. That meant that Iruka shouldn't waste his precious seconds on merely theoretically panicking over his growing interest towards the older shinobi, but use them for forming a solid plan to both avoid the imminent ambush and to serve a good counterattack against the cunning jounin. With a pensive huff, the chuunin wrapped the used towel around his hips and then picked up his haphazardly discarded clothes from the floor in order to put them in their rightful place with the rest of their laundry now that the more acute matters had started to take over his conscious mind after he had...released some steam out of his system. At the sight of multiple white stripes and spots adorning the dark fabric held in his hands, the slender eyebrows rose up to reflect Iruka's rather amazed reaction at the massacre of innocent menswear.

No wonder he had felt itchy, scratchy and sticky all over, his clothes had been all but soaked with semen.

Holding the clothes in his hands, Iruka looked down at his body, and the dark brown eyebrows frowned a couple of notches down on the gradually blushing forehead as the academy instructor gave a scowl at his body which in his honest opinion seemed to have discarded the facts concerning male body's capability to produce sperm in a certain time frame. From what he had scrubbed when he had hit the shower just a few minutes ago, the tan abdomen and thighs had been almost coated with the white substance that now seemed to continue its merry way both inside his boxers and to the outside of his black training pants. Moreover, washing his upper body had shown him that some of the itchy stuff had even managed to fly high enough to hit his nipples and sternum as well. How that had happened when he had still worn his tank top and pants was a question the pre-genin teacher wasn't sure he wanted to hear an answer for. Seeing that both the hem and the stomach area of the said top had also gotten their fair share of male reproductive cells, Iruka spent a brief moment wondering if any of the shinobi codex could provide him with an answer on how to ask the team member if they had ejaculated on an other shinobi's clothing without rising any animosities among the mission operatives.

On the other hand, asking if he had had sex with his mission partner twice, demanding to hear if the other man had any memories concerning their latest events, and then probing the possibility of having fallen for a man he had until now regarded more like a nerve-wrecking malign force of nature in that specific field of social relationships rather than a potential anything didn't appeal to him as an ideal first topic of discussion for the already gut-twisting morning either.

He wished he could laugh at the irony of sharing a house with an attractive man (now officially confirmed) and having tons of mutual things to talk about, but having no guts whatsoever to approach the said man nor to voluntarily bring up the troublesome subjects. One would think that after having seemingly non-coherent, apparently non-penetrative and definitely non-memorable sex for two times, the rest of their social issues could have solved themselves naturally without any fuss by now. Apparently he was badly mistaken. Although, he couldn't help but feel that he had his part too in screwing up their game, as he had all but thrown dozens of mixed messages to the genius who had the most perfect lips Iruka would love to see wrapped around his - and back to the problems of communication.

As far as he could tell, both the verbal and non-verbal versions of it were out of the question.

A sigh passed the grimacing lips, and the chuunin walked to the hamper in order to hide the clothes among the jounin's blacks and grays just like he had done a couple of times before, briefly ignoring the small sound at the back of his mind wondering how closely the other man actually went through the clothes when doing the laundry, and making a mental note to wash their clothes later that day to make sure that that didn't happen, only to stop on his tracks by the large basket and feel his heart miss a beat.

There, on the top of their more or less colorful laundry, laid a pair of multicolored underwear that resembled the ones he had had the questionable chance to wear on one specific morning, only that this time instead of shurikens the deadly cute pattern seemed like miniature kunais traveling across the off-white fabric. On a closer look, it weren't only kunais that currently decorated the fibers of the said underwear, and the dark eyes shot wide at the sight of a very familiar map of white areas splattered all over the patterned fabric. On a reflex Iruka didn't know that even existed until then, a tan hand stretched out and quickly lifted the boxers aside to give the staring dark eyes a better view on what the now slightly hyperventilating chuunin wasn't prepared to see. The dark gray and black clothes he had seen on the older man last night were in the same condition as his were, and he could detect even some rips on the seams on the other's pants, as if they had been pulled very hard by someone oh fuck.

Not even paying attention to the ruthless troops of scalding heat infiltrating his upper body, Iruka let go of the clothes he had been holding as if they had burned him and smothered a terrified yelp of realization by biting his knuckles hard enough to make it hurt. Scandalized, the young sensei stared at the bundle of clothes that now looked right back at him accusingly both on top of the basket and from the floor where some of them had dropped from his grasp. The well-built body tensed the more the further the whirring mind inside the dark-haired head processed the newly found clues that joined the rampaging facts that had been let loose inside Iruka's head for a good ten minutes ago.

Harassing a mission partner once was bad.

Doing it twice was asking for a murder.

Blindly, Iruka's hands searched for a solid surface to keep himself still standing, and soon enough he leaned heavily against the wooden cabinet that had been standing close by. Once again, the chaotic memories surfaced in the shallowly breathing man's mind and were browsed through with growing anxiety, as one piece at a time the chuunin tried to create even a vaguely consistent report on what on earth his body had been up to when his brain had been put on an impromptu vacation. He didn't hurt anywhere, he had a couple of bruises but that was expected concerning their assignment, his head was nearly splitting itself in half from the pain still wrecking through his synapses, but on the other hand his body was also feeling quite satisfied and eager for more, which didn't leave any room to argue whether or not some sort of sex had happened on one level or an other. Then, as if the situation couldn't have plummeted any more out of tracks for him, a tiny sidenote of a courageous yet short-lived thought left the shocked man breathless for a blink.

...He couldn't have topped the jounin, could he?

Quickly, the academy instructor turned around on his heels, swayed a bit more to the side than intended due to the sudden vertigo mauling his auris interna, and then ripped open the cabinet doors that had been pressing against the well-sculpted back. The dark eyes scanned through the wooden shelves, fervently looking for one particular item that could share some light to his currently forming intimate catastrophe. Spotting the small glass vessel made the air return back into Iruka's ribcage: the oil was there where he had hidden it after the previous incident, and it seemed to be untouched. Relieved, the chuunin's body released the stressed tension in one sharp exhale, the nimble hands still holding onto the wooden cabinet doors, only to become tight as a string again when yet another idle idea tripped Iruka's rushing thoughts.

Maybe they had done it without the oil.

After all, they had been profoundly drunk, at least according to the hellish hangover he had been suffering from for the whole morning. Then again, Iruka was pretty sure that despite the jounins being well-known for their insanity, even that mental feature of the silver-haired porn addict didn't vouch for the man taking it raw in the ass, moreover he also highly doubted if either of their elements could really have conveniently re-formulated itself into a lubricant. Furthermore, he wasn't even sure if the pale bastard even liked it up in there in the first place, never mind him even thinking the older shinobi in that context to begin with. Hell, not a single hair on Iruka's body felt like he would have recently fucked anybody's lights out, and the fragments of the dreams that he had gleaned so far were definitely not turning the tables for him to be the one taking charge in their actions...well, apart from pouncing the copy-nin. As an other, a way more familiar tingle traveled down his body, the dark eyes turned to glare at the visible tent that was quickly forming underneath his white towel that had been wrapped around the well-trained waist. Given, the flashing memory of Kakashi's tempting jawline and the taunting visual idea on how the man would have looked like if he had been on the receiving end in the sensei's wet dreams were doing very little to keep Iruka's blood circulating in the places it should have been. It had already been bad enough to hide his condition from the older man in the toilet while barfing his guts out, and realizing briefly that the other had had nothing except for a skimpy towel covering the pale body while they had taken turns in emptying their stomachs hadn't really helped.

Seeing that damned sexy smile on the flushed, handsome face had almost made his iron control set itself on fire.

Giving a deep breath, Iruka closed the cabinet doors and leaned his upper body heavily on his hands that were placed against the worn wood, the dark eyes falling shut as another long sigh left the troubled man while his hurting forehead thunked to rest against the smooth door. Not many would have guessed that he'd end up plotting his ways of surviving on a mission in a chilly bathroom with a horrible hangover and feeling horny to the smallest erected bone in his body. Now that he recalled it, the Hokage had done wisely for not giving them any rank to compare their mission with, as it now started to climb suspiciously more towards an S rather than mere B or A-class. They might even need to create a whole new rank for this one. H for humiliating would hit close.

Suddenly a strong shiver ran up and down the lean legs, as if the air around the chuunin had momentarily thickened and then dissipated. The fine tremors snuck even under the white towel, and the full lips were bitten briefly to stop the rising moan from dropping from the teacher's mouth at the sensations that were running across his naked skin. Yet another caress of air pressed against him, and Iruka quickly noticed his other, more sensible and highly trained senses set themselves off in a high pitch over the more sensual ones, as if there was something calling for his immediate attention aside the obvious exhibitionist that was setting up a permanent base camp underneath his towel. With a frown he opened his eyes a fraction to cast a subtle glance to the surroundings, and when the flare of a presence behind the bathroom door leading to the corridor was registered with his sharp senses, the chuunin didn't even think twice when his whole being took a turn of one-hundred-and-eighty from aroused to alarmed.

Leave it to a highly trained pervert to use the closed doors for their advantage.

In a blink, Iruka's body spurred into action, the chuunin fully intending to face the other shinobi that had suddenly made an appearance behind the door and giving the unnerving elite a piece of his mind regarding the unfairness of his position in their current dilemma (not to mention a knuckle-flavored reminder of their privacy protocol), but before he could even open his mouth to a loud retort the moment he tore open the wooden door and his blazing brown eyes locked themselves on their target, both the words and volume were cut short on Iruka's tongue when his temper tripped over its own feet and fell down with a sharp thud.

The surprised man currently staring back at him wasn't the one he had anticipated , and it would take a dead fool not to recognize the familiar white porcelain mask that was hiding the equally stunned ANBU 's face.

The pin never made it through the silence.

Not even a second after their sudden stumble over each other, a gloved hand was firmly pressed over Iruka's eyes to both block his vision and push him back into the bathroom. Before he could even deduct that the soft clink of porcelain indicated something being done to the ANBU's white mask, let alone raise his voice to demand an explanation on what the man had actually been doing when he had been caught, a greedy pair of lips pressed themselves over his opened mouth, making the teacher briefly choke on his effectively silenced words. Staggering for a proper footing, the tan legs slid while pushing back on the tiled floor as the chuunin was forced to retreat in to the bathroom, and soon enough the broad, scarred back hit what felt like the same wooden cabinet doors, the sounds of falling objects clattering through the thickening air that wrapped itself around the dark-haired man and his captor. When an armored hand peeled off his blindly pushing hands from the armored elite's chest plate and pinned them above his head while a tongue forced itself past his lips, when he could feel the lean legs force his thighs open and the clothed hips ground themselves against his own, making him suck in a sharp breath that was swallowed from him by the groaning ANBU, a thought pushed its way through the shock that was steadily taking over Iruka's mind.

Something was badly off with the elite.

The hand holding onto his struggling arms let go of them and soon enough found its way to Iruka's backside, causing the blue lights dance over the teacher's still covered eyes when the roaming hand gave him a rough squeeze before sliding under his thigh and lifting his leg up, making him feel the coarse fabric of the assassin's uniform trousers rubbing against his sensitive skin. Not one to go down without a fight, and acting more out of pure reflex rather than a well-considered plan, the chuunin quickly gathered the temper he had yet to unleash for the day and against the pang of fear ringing the bells of his self-preservation instincts that knew very well that punching an ANBU may not be the smartest idea in the chuunin codex, the tan hands dropped down, curled into tight fists and swung towards the armored body.

Iruka could only hope that his will of Fire was riled up enough to compensate the lacking chakra in his attack.

The blows made contact, for that Iruka was certain, only to suddenly feel his body erupt into a frenzied fit of tremors as his element suddenly reacted to his fists touching the other man's body, a wave of heat hitting his insides and clashing with something that seemed to devour his whole entity. The mouth that had been cutting off his air supplies suddenly retreated for a moment as a low, rumbling grunt of the other man washed against his unexpectedly sweaty skin, allowing Iruka to draw in sharp intakes of needed oxygen in order to gather his focus for an other blow.

What happened next, though, made sure that the opportunity for that never came.

The second the other man's grunt was registered by his ringing ears, Iruka's ears picked up yet another sound coming from the man, a low, predatory purr, which was soon drowned in an onslaught of sharply stinging sensations surging throughout the scar-faced man's body, making his back arc like a bow in the steel-hard hold while the kiss-swollen lips opened into an alarmed scream.

Something was eating him from the inside.

“It's dangerous to arouse a man's lust for things they have bad, sensei.”

The ruthless lips were back onto his even more forceful than before, and the hand covering his eyes pushed his head more against the wooden doors that suddenly felt to become alive against his skin, the fibers of the hard wood crawling over his neck and shoulders and digging into his body like starving leeches, draining his body from its energy to struggle against the man holding him while the ANBU seemed to grow stronger, more passionate and literally harder with each second the man managed to stay in physical contact with the now frantically pushing, trashing and panting academy instructor.

Out of the blue, a strong scent of mud and leaves pushed itself into Iruka's nose, making the struggling teacher's mind shout out the warning his subconscious had been aware of but hadn't unfortunately been able to put its finger on until that exact moment. He had missed two vital details concerning the fundamental rules of their elements.

For one, what happened to one could be applied to others.

Second, they were called 'Five Elements' for a reason.

The screech of thousand birds was the last thing he heard before the lights went out.

Chapter Text

With a sudden start, a pair of dark eyes snapped open to stare blindly at the dim ceiling that stretched above them, the corners of the vast, empty space shifting their locations in a disoriented spin around the shallowly, almost barely breathing body that laid on the narrow futon. After a second, the thickly and tightly dressed silence whose gentle touch lingered on the dark, tousled hair was registered by a pair of keenly listening ears that twitched in anticipation when they were suddenly pulled away from the deafening depths of what felt like twenty-inch thick cotton where they had been tucked in just a second ago.

A moment later, the rapidly thumping heart was given a permission to calm down and stay inside the now gradually more deeply breathing chest, as its thrumming had been blocking out every other sound that the owner of the mentioned sharp ears somehow knew that he should really be able to pick up.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the tan, well-sculpted body moved itself on the soft mattress, and the dark eyes were closed when a thin ray of light found its way across the awakening man's face. Letting the bright assailant take its time on the scarred nose and cheekbones, the man on the mattress carefully counted each of his limbs, each of his fingers and toes, counted the beats of his thankfully calmer heart, counted the deep yet quiet breaths that flowed past his nostrils and filled his lungs, only to flow back up and out past the parted lips. Finding that the number of the expected appendages matched with his last memories, the lean body shifted again, and a sigh flowed past the full lips, only to turn into a quiet hiss when an unexpected, dull ache flared all across the broad back and the narrow hips. The dark eyes were opened once more.

It seemed that it was time to move.

Moving like he had been trained to, the lean muscles rolled and pulled beneath the dark clothes they were covered with as the man heaved himself up on the futon and then fluidly stood up on the hardwood floor. The tentative shuffle of feet let him know that it was alright to take the first step without finding himself frenching the fibers of the wooden planks. At the thought of engaging into romantic actions with wooden surfaces, the dark body went rigid while the pony-tailed head almost gave itself a whiplash for looking around a tad too quickly. Seeing that there was nobody accompanying him, yet not being entirely sure if that was indeed a good sign, in silence, the dark-haired man chose his course, not to the kitchen but towards the source of the sensations that had started to make his skin tingle. As the man opened the doors to the training room, the lean legs carried him inside the large space, only to stop almost instantly in their tracks. In a blink, the deafening silence overwhelmed his furiously tickling senses as Iruka took in the sight that greeted him in the ascetic training room when his legs started to move again, one tentative step at a time taking him further onto the matted floor that bathed in the eerily cold light. Pulling themselves out of the stupefied stare that they were suddenly frozen in, the narrow eyes quickly scanned the area to the man's left where the bathroom was, not so sure what to find in that direction.

What they did settle onto was enough to make his already settled heart miss three beats in an alerted stumble.

On the spot where they just that morning had had double doors leading to the bathroom, the remnants of splintered wood hung limply from their rails, the rest of the now annihilated sliding doors having scattered all across the tatami mats on which Iruka stood staring at the sight of destruction. A more cautious step brought the man closer to the large doorway, and with a peek inside the bathroom, he had his thoughts confirmed that it wasn't only the doors that had decided to re-decorate the two rooms. Slowly, the teacher's eyes swept their careful way back to the damaged floor, finally settling over the black-edged, scorched path cutting through the fibers of the tatami mats, the steady line crossing the floormats resembling a fatally accurate blade made of pure lightning and miscalculated use of chakra. As the chuunin's gaze followed the darkened path, he could feel his pulse reaching the regular mission levels the faster the longer the path went, crossing the mats all the way to the other side of the spacious training room, only to stop the journey on a considerately large crack that had appeared on one of the thick walls now facing the internally gawking chuunin. As much as it made his skin crawl, Iruka found himself searching for any tell-tale splatters among the crumbled, darkened patches of wood and plaster. Finding none, he cursed his training for suspecting that outcome. After a slow, hesitant minute, the academy instructor turned away from the large dent, and the keenly observing eyes were again brought back to the pitiful sight of what once were a couple of wooden doors. The bright lamps still lightening the bathroom created shadows over the splintered and shattered surfaces, so sharp, so inauspicious, that for a moment, the young chuunin couldn't decide whether or not he had been extremely lucky to be unconscious throughout the events that had happened after he had slipped out of this particular reality.

Then, gradually, Iruka shifted his attention towards what still were thankfully a fully functional pair of sliding doors that stood between him and the terrace.

Cautiously, the tan, lean legs shifted and stepped over the clear evidence of a struggle when Iruka strolled towards what he had sensed all the while during his examinations over the conflict area. The closed barriers still keeping him mostly shielded from the light outside had been left ajar, permitting the eager rays of light splay themselves all over the matted floor and modest walls, even climb daringly enough up on the dark skin of the brown-haired shinobi. As he took in a light breath, Iruka's nose was thrilled to detect the scent of fresh summer air of early noon among the soothing aroma of a passed rain. The tan, nimble fingers smoothed their way over the lightly worn hard wood, betraying a blink of uncertainty in their twitch, then took a better hold of the frames and then gave it to the reliable hands and strong arms to take care of the rest. With a smooth roll, rattle and clack, the doors slid in their rails as they gave way to the man left standing in between them, the otherwise rather quiet sounds suddenly bellowing like the army of thousand into the bit chilly air that greeted the chuunin's scarred cheeks and briefly blinded eyes. Only that none of his senses were currently interested in anything else than a certain silver-haired man who had been standing in the warming sun and now slowly turned to meet his gaze at the tact announcement of his presence.

When the look passing the narrow, gray eye was detected as their eyes met in the shimmering sunlight, in an instant of a heartbeat, it felt as if the time had suddenly forgotten that it should move forward at all, which was enough for Iruka's tongue to take on action before his body and mind could even fathom that they should decide what to do next.

"...We seem to be missing a pair of bathroom doors, Kakashi-san."

His voice reverberated low in his chest and felt raspy in his throat when the words flowed through his lips, and when the look on the masked jounin's face changed into something more than just vague surprise, to Iruka it seemed that like him, the time didn't even dare to breathe at that moment either.

Then, as if facing a dangerous decision and then taking it before giving himself time to regret it, the gray eye curved into a familiar, light smile and the silver-haired head dipped as an affirmative. "...So it seems, Iruka-sensei."

"That isn't the only thing you'll be missing after a minute, Iruka-kun," a chilled, more feminine voice said in a leveled tone behind his back, and Iruka spun on his heels only to come face to face with an unimpressed, pursed pair of painted lips and scathingly glaring amber eyes, the owner of the said eyes having crossed her illegally strong arms over the ample bosom hidden beneath the light-gray tunic and green jacket.

The stiff presence of the older man that suddenly hit his scarred back did very little to ease Iruka's itching reflexes from taking the appealing option of fleeing on sight. "H..Hokage-sama.."

If possible, the glare in the amber eyes turned into a direct promise of making both of Iruka's lower cheeks to remember the upcoming scolding for his entire lifetime. "I'm making us some tea. Then we'll discuss." With that, the woman turned on her high heels and walked calmly into the kitchen, the aggressive, sharp clack of the hard heels leaving both men effectively silenced for now on the sunny terrace.

An almost inaudible cough caught Iruka's attention, and discarding the nervous feeling settling into his stomach, the chuunin turned to regard the man who was unexpectedly standing a few feet further away from him. The sheepish look crossing the jounin's masked face spoke volumes. "...Well. Shall we sit down?"

His only option was to comply.

Having tea or coffee with the Hokage was normally considered as a privilege not many got to enjoy during their career, no matter which rank they represented. Should it be rich and dark black roast with a bitter bite, cultivated green or ever sophisticated white with the slightest hint of jasmine, getting a summons for a cup was usually all it needed for the shinobi to both feel proud of themselves and regrettably also suspect that they had done something that their superior commander had troubles to understand and what they wished to hear more about. It also meant that the rules concerning the almost rather intimate meetings were always formed by each leading nin, a procedure which usually started with a certain amount of awkwardness when both the inferior and the superior rank tried to figure the appropriate ways to enjoy the offered hot beverage. In Tsunade's case, it took a bit of effort from Iruka to actually sit and let his leader make a cup for him, the chuunin having steeped all of their teas when he had sat with the Sandaime in the same manner. As the things were, both Kakashi and Iruka had gotten their fair share of the calm discussions with their Hokages, former and present. For a jounin and a chuunin to share a pot together with the Godaime, though, was an exception in the rules many didn't even know that existed in the first place.

"I suppose you wish to clear a few matters now that you are awake." One other rule that took them both a bit of time to understand in Tsunade's way of working was that she wasn't one to waste her energy on pleasantries when it came to the things she wanted the most. It was a good feature in her, both the ex-ANBU and the teacher agreed on that, but that didn't mean they wanted to be the targets for that particular characteristic.

The other thing was that they were both quite fluent in reading her mood based on the drinks she made. When it was green tea or mellow medium roast with creamy milk, things were well and nobody had been closely introduced to death. White tea meant that she was happy, usually for winning in a gamble or beating the others in negotiations concerning the well-being of her village. Mostly in those cases, Kakashi got his share of the more expensive roasts. Serving plain black, both tea and coffee, meant that she was tired and just heard something that made her summon her subordinates to humor her a little. Serving something that had been badly brewed, no matter if it was any of the aforementioned drink types or something else, meant that she would also serve them a solid fist after lecturing their spines so straight that even the copy-nin stayed stiff for a couple of hours.

Seeing the yellow color of the tea and smelling that the given odor was not what the poor sencha should have been adorning was enough for Iruka to rethink his shortly lasted relief of having survived this far in his life. Judging from the surprisingly subdued aura coming from the jounin sitting next to him, it seemed that Kakashi was no stranger either to the subtle warning they were given. That or the man was just sulking for not getting any coffee, which, Iruka hoped, was just as probable, as the man seemed to have no inclination to touch the steaming mug before him.

After the slow beats of heavy silence, a frustrated sigh was heard from the woman's direction. "Umino Iruka, chuunin of Konohagakure. Report."

If Iruka flinched at the icy mention of his name, Kakashi was professional enough not to show that he saw it. The dark brown eyes met the amber ones, neither seeing the narrow gray cutting in between their staring competition, measuring both of them on its own scale before turning to squint at the sun beaming over them.

Lowering his gaze, Iruka watched as the reflections of light danced on the surface of the yellow-ish tea while he took a moment to contemplate his position. His Hokage wasn't amused, and with all things considered, the chuunin was determined to show that neither was he. Nevertheless, he knew his duties, and wasn't too keen to see how thinly Tsunade's patience was really running when it came to their current mission. The bitterly biting tea didn't ease his nerves, but was awakening enough to loosen his tongue. "Umino Iruka, reporting mission status. There has been an unexpected attack on the mission grounds. By the feel of it, it seems that minor injuries were inflicted, mostly on the victims back, due to an encounter with an unstable ANBU operative. Also having a minor headache, either from the hangover that was suffered earlier in the morning, or from the said attack. Due to the illogical nature of the assault and the unconsciousness resulting from it, the amount of information I managed to gather is unfortunately lacking on several areas, but one factor was confirmed to be the reason behind the attack." With that, the dark eyes were lifted to look through the terrace doors at the matted floor in the room next to the three shinobis, the teacher's gaze narrowing at the sight of the scorch marks and splintered wood. "It wasn't the ANBU that attacked me. It was his element." Then the pony-tailed head turned to face the silver-haired one by his other side, meeting the lone eye peering over the dark mask. "I also heard an other elemental attack occurring in that moment."

"The ANBU suffered minor bruises, nothing that he couldn't handle with a couple of days' rest, if that's your concern, Iruka-sensei. I'd say that his ego suffered more than his physique," Tsunade's voice cut in before Kakashi could reply, but the look of hardened challenge passing in the gray eye wasn't missed by Iruka.

The exasperated sigh from Tsunade's side drew the men's attention back from the short-lived battle of wills. "Yet therein lies the problem we have with it. Even though it was his element, as you say, it still was the highly trained ANBU who suddenly forgot all rules of their professional etiquette and assaulted one of his comrades, not to mention someone of lower rank. The attack's intimate nature isn't certainly putting any pressure off his case, whether or not it was intentional. The elders will demand a full explanation on this once it enters the records, not to mention Ibiki isn't too happy with me at the moment."

A frown formed on Iruka's face at his superior's words. It seemed that the incident was gaining more serious consequences than he had thought. Whether they liked it or not, some shinobis snapped once in every two weeks in their village, and an assault that had been defected on time wasn't mostly even recorded, depending on the nature of the incident and the intent of it, of course. Then again, having an ANBU lose control poses a very high risk for the whole population, so he could easily follow Tsunade's logical concern in that. That didn't mean he couldn't still question it, though. "You couldn't have predicted that, Tsu-"

A single look from the woman's eyes made his tongue reconsider its existence. By the time the red lips started to form words, so did Iruka's ears complain about their unfair position for a second. "I could have, and both you and the masked mute over there know it very well, which leads us to the more pressing matters, Iruka-sensei," answered the slowly darkening voice of the blonde medic, and the genin instructor was finally certain then that their discussion had more in it than just reporting and debating over the fate of one misbehaving ANBU operative.

To the chuunin's surprise, Kakashi's voice drifted over from his right in order to defuse the ignited explosive tag that was their current conversation topic. "Hokage-sama-" However, before the man could speak past the honorific, the sharp crack of the wooden floor boards cut down the forming argument and almost made Iruka spill his tea.

Tsunade's voice was calm and collected, but not a single drop of warmth could be detected in it as the amber eyes looked down at the tea cup standing next to her right fist, the small ripples in the yellow liquid glittering in the sun. "I know what you're about to say, Kakashi, and you'll be sadly mistaken if you think that I let you act upon that suggestion. My intention is not to be rude, and we all know that me blowing my top at you two doesn't serve this situation that we have right now, but as your Hokage it's my duty to say when enough is enough. You can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I see that things are." The gradually gathered heat in the amber eyes turned into finest cold steel as they were lifted to regard both of the silent men. "You haven't focused on the mission at all. Based on what I have seen and heard so far, it would take a moment for an outsider even to understand that you actually have a common task that needs to be focused on. I'd say that you have both all but avoided this mission. Had you actually paid any attention to it, it would have been so obvious what will happen with the fucking ANBU that you would have had troubles seeing past the fact staring at you in the eye." The hard glint in the narrowed eyes sharpened their focus on Iruka, and the chuunin felt his ears turn hot under the heavy scrutiny. "In our line of work, information exists to be shared, and you both have failed in what I doubted that you ever could fail to deliver. Keeping me in the dark for whatever reason concerning whatever it is that is happening between you two has so far endangered three finest soldiers that I have. You have somehow managed to mock both me and our fundamental rules that are the sole reason for our clans and children to survive by not acting like you're supposed to as two Konoha's shinobis but like a pair of irresponsible troublemakers who, by the looks of it, don't seem to know when personal matters become the village's matters. I will not tolerate selfishness, as you very well know, Kakashi."

On that choice of words, Iruka gave a confused blink and then turned his slightly widened eyes to regard the silent jounin next to him. "What is she referring to, Kakashi-san?"

"I'm referring to him not fulfilling his duties when asked to be a responsible adult, which is something that you have been found guilty as well, Iruka-sensei. I know that working with children sometimes rubs off on their teachers, but I still expected more from you...well, more than from the brat here," Tsunade said, and for a moment, Iruka actually saw the jounin's shoulders sag more than usual.

He wasn't sure if it was the sight of the defeated man or the blow to his own ego, but before he could stop it, Iruka had already opened his mouth. "Tsunade-sama, I think you're being unreasonable." Both the amber and the gray eye widened at the quietly spoken words, and Iruka sensed the air thickening around him, almost squeezing with the tightness rivaling Mitarashi's snake summons when he carefully weighed his words. "I can't speak on behalf of Kakashi-san, since I'm clearly also dismissed regarding some matters that only you and him seem to know about, but I also cannot sit and watch as my mission partner is excessively punished." If Tsunade was surprised by the hard, professional glint that he could sense taking over his dark eyes, Iruka allowed himself to be a bit pleased about it. "There are things that could have been avoided had the intel not been incomplete, true, and we both do apologize for that inconvenience. However, all of us know how dangerous it is also to give wrong intel which determines the next actions performed on a mission, the worst case scenario leading to someone's injury or death. Therefore I would rather listen to Kakashi-san's reasons for keeping some information to himself rather than reporting it to you, Tsunade-sama, before needlessly reprimanding a smart man for making poor decisions, and for not using any other way for handling this mess. For myself, I do acknowledge that my decisions on some matters could have been more carefully evaluated and even replaced by better ones, but before the incidents that happened the night before and this morning, I can also say that we both have expressed interest in working for the benefit of this mission. As for the ANBU..." While taking a deep breath, Iruka clearly sensed the sharp look in the gray eye boring into his head. If that was supposed to silence him, the jounin clearly didn't know him very well. "..it would be a waste to condemn a man for falling prey for something he had very little control over."

The silence that fell on their leader's side was surprising, but what took both men by even more surprise was the sudden tilt of the painted lips as they turned into a dry smile. Then, as if she was just enjoying the unwavering attention she got from her audience and even more of throwing them off balance, a light huff left the now smiling mouth. "My, my. What a mess indeed." When the smile turned into a sharp smirk on the fair-skinned face, Tsunade was pleased to note that Iruka's hands jerked for a genjutsu dispelling seal while the unnervingly bored gray eye didn't look so bored anymore. "That was an interesting choice of words you had there, sensei."

Iruka decided that he already disliked the look on his leader's face, and judging from the uneasy grunt heard from the masked assassin, apparently the jounin next to him seemed to have reached the same conclusion.

The rise of one blonde eyebrow was all the two trained killers needed in order to steel themselves for whatever it was that was on their way. "Sensing the unease from you makes me think that I am right to assume that the incidents about which Iruka-sensei spoke about are connected." Although, now that she wasn't any longer wallowing in the deep pits of being mightily pissed at the two idiots for increasing the amount of her paperwork, Tsunade also had time to really take a look at the men sitting before her. After a moment, the long look turned into a baffled blink. Then, all of a sudden, the blink turned into loud laughter. Had the men expected some sort of reaction towards their shy tongues, deducting from the positively pole-axed looks crossing their faces, that apparently wasn't it.

While ignoring the slightly alarming sight of his leader losing it once and for all, Kakashi turned to the younger man who was alarmingly silent on his behalf. Pointing at the now undoubtedly officially crazy Hokage, he was fairly sure the sharp-minded teacher knew what he was referring to. "Was it something you said?"

The fierce blush decorating the high cheekbones wasn't dark enough to compete with the scalding hot scowl he received form the other man. On a second look, though, the eyes of the chuunin softened into speculative kind, and Kakashi knew then that the conflict in the bathroom was far from being settled. He might as well start sharing the information right then rather than postponing the inevitable confrontation with the self-proclaimed dark-haired dictator of report stamps. The annoyed huff that was drowned into the loud giggles somewhere in the background was all he needed to give to the dark-skinned man to know that he had the other's full attention. "It didn't hit him." The gray eye was briefly closed and the tiniest shrug lifted the darkly clothed shoulders. "Badly, at least."

If possible, the stern look in the narrowing, dark brown eyes only intensified. "You cut through the tatami mats with it, Kakashi-san. How do you define 'badly' in this case?"

"Not enough to kill on spot and get me sentenced for murder," the almost hushed, low voice of the masked man murmured "...but convincingly enough to stop his advance." With those words, the gray, narrow eye peered once again over the dark mask to its counterparts, and the jounin felt a sharp flare of presence pinch him from the chuunin's side. Slowly, his gaze traced the red tinge holding its ground on the scarred cheekbones as the given intel was calmly contemplated in the now troubled-looking genin instructor's mind. "...It wasn't my raikiri that I hit the kohai with, sensei." If the teacher felt uncomfortable to be spotted on speculating things, at least the man didn't give Kakashi any reason to think that way. The man's fingers flicked some imaginary dust from the dark uniform shirt before the chuunin turned to meet the gaze Kakashi was sure the man had felt on him.

"It still was your element. I clearly heard the screech."

Kakashi saw the sharp point when it was pointing at him with fatal accuracy, the man also absently noting that there could be no laughter heard from the third nin's direction anymore. "That's true, but I used that to get rid of the cabinet doors." The pale fingers stopped the drumming they were performing against the still abandoned mug that now had less warmer content in it, and then moved to point vaguely at one certain wall behind the dark-skinned chuunin. "That came from my fist."

The confusion showing in the dark eyes would only last a couple of seconds, the jounin was sure of it. "Your fist? But won't that require-" And there it was, the dawning of realization. "You idiot!"

"Maa, it isn't that simple actually, Iruka-sen-"

"I'm pleased to hear that you are finally agreeing with me, Iruka-kun." The dark eyes were turned back to Tsunade, but not without treating Kakashi with the last withering scowl dark enough to make the jounin's mind halt in mid-thought. After a slow beat, Kakashi also realized that the laughter had been replaced with more indistinguishable layers of amusement now drifting around their Hokage's persona. Before he could turn to the woman, she beat him to it.

"I'll go make us another pot. Maybe now I'll be able to brew the tea well enough to make it somewhat digestable. Care to join me and show me which teas I can use from your box without getting you on my neck, Iruka-sensei?" Tsunade inquired with a tiny grin adorning the painted lips, her voice having gained far more warmth and a more pleasant ring than earlier in the noon. Not waiting for the reply, the tray was taken with a graceful sweep in the strong hands and the cups, still full mug and pot were gently picked on it.

If Kakashi had registered the wave of liquified electric current traveling all over his left side when the tan chuunin had stood up and obediently followed their leader to the kitchen, the jounin regarding the sunny yard hid it well.

"The brat's discipline is cracking a bit."

From watching over the steeping jasmine tea, Iruka whipped his head around to look at the woman leaning against the counter next to him. "Excuse me, Hokage-sama?"

A faint smile tugged the painted lips, and the small nudge of the blonde head told the teacher what was it that the woman was referring to. "He's having troubles sitting there by himself as we speak, knowing that you're at my mercy over here and he can't do anything about it. Well, nothing that won't get him spanked for disobeying an order, that is."

"I'm afraid that I don't follow, Tsunade-sama." Truth to be told, the academy instructor wasn't sure if he even wanted to. The pointed look from his leader made him realize that he had been holding the sieve a bit too tightly, though, so he would also be a fool to think that his internal debate hadn't been detected by her.

The amused hum leaving the woman did little to ease the tension. "That seems to be the nowadays' trend, apparently."

Iruka let the sieve land on its holder with more force than intended, but he was sure it could handle it. "May I speak directly, Tsunade-sama?" Letting his eyes turn downwards to the awaiting tray, the teacher counted the seconds he knew the woman was more than ready to use in order to lengthen answering his request. He managed to count five.

"I didn't know that you would ever need my permission to speak directly, Iruka-kun. At this point it's even recommendable that you do so." The lilt in the woman's words spoke volumes.

"Then I expect the same from you, Hokage-sama." Lifting his gaze to meet the other, the dark-haired man knew then that speaking was now only a formality needed to make things absolutely clear. "A Kage doesn't interfere with a mission unless their help is urgently or desperately needed, and even then things are handled without any excessive fuss. So why change the protocol now?" Seeing the frown forming on the fair-skinned forehead, Iruka was fairly certain that the implications behind his question did hit the mark.

As the frown softened into an unreadable mask on his Hokage's face, Iruka took the tray and headed back to the terrace without waiting for a reply. After all, he was pretty sure he will get one in just two minutes. Besides, the blink from the jounin who was still sitting on the terrace and who by the looks of it managed to sense a familiar scent of dark roast in the air made him briefly stop worrying about the possibly peeved Hokage behind his unguarded back. "I made you some coffee, Kakashi-san."

The pale-skinned man appeared to have lost his tongue yet again.

With a passing, albeit a bit uneasy smile gracing his lips, Iruka sat down and while he heard the clack of familiar high heels heading towards them, the teacher offered the mug to the staring jounin and the pony-tailed head nodded at the mug's direction just to make sure that the pale man hadn't suddenly become deaf and blind as well. That would be detrimental for their continuing confrontations in the mission room, the chuunin was sure of that. "You had some new type so I hope it's alright."

The gray eye slid over to the mug, and then the mismatched pair quirked into smiling crescents with a sliver of strange unease. "Thank you, Iruka-sensei."

"You really do have a resourceful mission partner, Kakashi." Tsunade's words made them both turn to the woman who stepped over and sat down facing the men. "All he needed was one question to annihilate my plans to make you squirm like the little misbehaving mental miscreant you are." If the dry smile was meant to humor them, Tsunade clearly didn't care if it failed to do so. "In any case, he also makes me wonder why I haven't forced him into a jounin rank yet," the eye-roll from the chuunin made her chuckle, "which, I know, we have debated over many times already, and I'm not getting into that miserable attempt of subtle persuasion now." What she was getting into, though, might soon enough make Iruka consider turning himself over to the wondrous insanity of jounins. One could never tell with the polite and well-behaving ones.

Then again, her bets on the question of who will crumble first were on the masked one. "Although, seeing that the result from my gifts was only you both having one hell of a hangover according to brat here and then Iruka-sensei being molested against the nearest sturdy piece of furniture by a man who was not part of my equations, I'm starting to think that even if I tossed you two into a narrow closet stark naked and tied up skin to skin, it would still be me who is left with the biggest headache and no happy endings in sight."

Hearing the sudden mixture of pained gurgling and coughing made Kakashi turn to look at the choking, currently crimson-colored chuunin who apparently had a quirk of drowning himself with beverages, and without further thought given on what was and what wasn't wise in their situation, on reflex, the pale hand rose, aimed and whacked the broad, scarred back-

-only for Kakashi to gain a shocked shout and a cold slap of water splashing across his face.

The sudden, quite painfully obvious and steel-hard erection roaring for freedom inside his training pants while he numbly listened to the taps of water hitting the wood beneath him was only the prelude for what the copy-nin, the man of thousand jutsus and the infamous former Hound, little by little, understood to be the worst coffee time with his Hokage.

Ever.

During her long and adventurous career as the infamous kunoichi of Konohagakure and one of the troublesome triplets also known as legendary sannins, Tsunade-hime, the Hokage of the Hidden Village of Konoha, was about to make medical history. Most probably something that will be instantly forbidden to ever be tried again and boosted with a severe threat to visit Ibiki for an afternoon talk should anyone even dare to consider trying it, but a breakthrough nevertheless.

As she calmly observed two of her favorite shinobis, a chuunin and a jounin, sitting in more or less stiff attention, both fully alerted to either hide in the nearest bathroom in two seconds or escaping over the high fence wall judging by the stricken look in one particular gray eye, Tsunade became also very aware that the said breakthrough might also force her to allow these two unfortunate individuals to have an extended leave from work and give them a hefty paycheck with a certificate to the hot springs, all expenses paid.

However, since the tense ambiance that had settled among them had no intention to dissolve itself without a gentle push, the blond busty medic knew when to take the initiative. It was her duty, after all. The rustle of green jacket ushered the silence away as the pig-tailed woman reached for the pot and filled both hers and the currently speechless chuunin's cup, and then scooted to settle leaning her back against the warm terrace wall. She let a wry smile slither its way to her lips at the sight of the two men who apparently couldn't fathom what had just happened between them. "I see that it has progressed further than from what I saw last time."

With the spell efficiently broken between them, Iruka was the first to catch up with the situation, the tan hand being hastily lowered back to the ground from the air it had been wavering after having delivered the wet comeback to the silver-haired jounin who seemed to take a while longer to pull his head back to the terrace they were sitting on. After a beat, Kakashi ran a pale hand through the now damp hair before squinting accusingly at Tsunade with the narrow, gray eye. Not long after, as Iruka caught the look on the jounin's face, the dark brown eyes narrowed into speculative, peeved slits on the chuunin's face and were turned to meet the challenging golden-brown ones.

A snort was what Tsunade gave at that. About time those two started to act their age. "That was the punishment for keeping me uninformed. You're not the only ones who can play this game." Then she took a swig from her lukewarm tea before dangling the cup loosely in her hands, her eyes casting a look to the village behind the high fence. "But that tease was still valid and liable, since it withholds the key factors to your situation. " The tea cup stilled in one hand. "Iruka-sensei. You said that it was the ANBU's element that attacked you rather than the man himself."

Glancing up from the precariously tilting cup that he had been watching, the dark-haired man gave a nod. "Yes, Hokage-sama." The woman holding the cup didn't need to tell him to continue. "I noticed that the ANBU behaved very differently with me when compared to his interaction with Kakashi-san, whom he usually addressed as 'senpai'. First, my initial thoughts were that he was either genuinely insane or actually interested in me in more than just collegial way, considering how the first two encounters went with him." The quick glance at the silent jounin wasn't missed by the amber eyes. "For the third time, well, we can all see the result of that." The strong, trained arms were crossed over the broad chest, and the sannin was relatively pleased to see a familiar, thoughtful frown forming on the man's face. She had missed that look. "It took until the third time for me to put my finger on it, though, so for his defense I have to say that he still might not know what happened to him. It appears that the way the elements behave and take room from our consciousness is more devious than we first thought. This could have been happening ever since the first day we started the mission without us even realizing it."

"Then why is it that a man with no apparent connection to you has a reaction to your element?" Judging from the voice of the Hokage, which was as unreadable as ever, Iruka understood that his answer was only meant to confirm what the woman had already thought. Lifting a finger to rub the bridge of his nose, he was fairly sure that she got the message.

"In the map of the elemental chakra nature transformations [1], there are five elements: fire, wind, earth, water and lightning. This is what we've been taught since genin. It is also taught that all of these elements have their counterparts towards which they have the advantage, and then of course the ones that they're weak against. In our case, the elements that were mingling together were lightning, water and earth." A cough from some dust interrupted the lecture, and Iruka took a sip from the tea which, he was sad to notice, had gotten cold. "That means we already had a certain power balance created between us three on the elemental level, on which I was largely at disadvantage towards the ANBU as his element was dominant over mine, in other words earth beats water, whereas he and Kakashi-san have a very different situation since earth is weak against lightning."

Apparently the topic was interesting enough for Kakashi to put his mouth in use. "But most of the jounins have several elements at their disposal. That would affect the balance surely."

As much as he would have loved to agree with the man and get things done quicker, Iruka shook his head. "It would seem logical, Kakashi-san, but apparently this occurrence is tied to the innate nature character of the shinobi; in your case, lightning. Some of us do have the tendency for more than one nature affinity, and the ANBU seemed to have some strange advanced form where he could make wooden things react to him," on those words, the gray and the amber eyes exchanged a calculating look without Iruka noticing, "but most of our encounters have had only one element per each individual reacting to the other. In my case, water conducts electricity, so it's not completely useless against it as it is towards earth, but the only element mixing to it has been your lightning and not the others that you are capable of using. We haven't started any fires here yet."

"And I certainly hope that you don't," Tsunade's amused remark cut in, after which a moment of silence fell upon them. "What do you make of that, Kakashi?"

Sensing the surprised look given to him by the younger man didn't make the jounin any less self-conscious than he already was. "It fits to what I have been able to deduct so far, Hokage-sama. It could also be either the cause or the symptom for the chakra disturbance that we spoke about earlier."

Apparently the chuunin took that as his cue to join in the discussion. "Wait, you already talked about that?"

"Yes, we did. It became somewhat imperative to do so after what happened here this morning," Tsunade said and gave a pointed look in the direction of the training room. "I don't know how we even managed to overlook that matter at all, because usually the things that have Kakashi involved are somehow always ending up with him screwing up things concerning chakra. Maybe I had hoped that putting him on a mission where he wouldn't have much to begin with would give me a different result." The displeased note in the spoken words was enough to keep Iruka from choking on his tea the second time. He remembered more than one time when they had discussed about that possibility in the Hokage Tower. On a hindsight, had he known that he were to be assigned to witness the failure of the said hypothesis, he would have snatched the first long-term mission offered outside the village's gates on that fatal morning when they had received their summons.

"In any case, it seems that our chakras are indeed somehow involved in this, sensei." Albeit annoyed from the offhand remark, Kakashi steered their conversation back on track. "The blue color matched the color of our regular chakra, and remembering the fight where you said it all just suddenly intensified for you, one can clearly see the connection now that it occurred today." Without waiting the question, the gray eye turned to look at the staring brown. "I happened to experience the same thing with the kohai."

Well that explained the crack in the wall, indeed.

"When the elements mix, so do the chakra levels on certain degree, though we cannot be sure what those levels are and in what conditions it happens, but it happening twice means that it will not stop from happening," Tsunade said and gave a tired sigh. "I can't say if it shares any connection to the power balance of the elements-"

"I believe it does, Hokage-sama." The level of certainty in the chuunin's rich baritone was convincing. "I was already struggling with the ANBU when he came onto me, granted, because a chuunin against the elite is just a catastrophe waiting to happen on the chuunin's side," he allowed himself the tiny ramble there, most likely to comfort his bruised ego, "but the instant when my element clashed with him, it felt almost as if he was...draining me. 'Eating' would hit closer to the feeling I had, but knowing the sensitive nature of the things that have happened here so far that just sounds like picking a fight with the pervert." The awkward cough he received from the jounin spoke volumes, which did ease the rising blush from his face. "He was taking my chakra, or so I felt at least."

"...The chakra that Kakashi took from him in order to beat some sense into the porcelain mask, apparently. I see." The speculative rise of the blonde eyebrow did agree with him. The gathered information left all three of them sitting in silence, since they all knew that they had only scratched the surface of the most important aspects on the things gone awry. The pursed lips turned into a thoughtful pout on the youthful face of the blonde-haired lady, and the amber eyes gave the cup she still held in her hands a pensive look. "...I'm asking you to listen and obey carefully for what is about to happen."

The men weren't really given any options there.

Knowing that she had their more or less willing consent, Tsunade swirled the tea in her cup when the words started to flow. "In order to understand what is happening between you two, we need to understand how the human brain and body works altogether. Both autonomous yet tightly wrapped up in the necessary cooperation in order to stay functional in the long run, our minds and bodies create a complicated system that is coded to work in certain ways. That particular coding is the key as to why we act the way we do, a combination of our genetic inheritance and then the effects of the environment and innate tendencies which either are activated or deactivated based on what happens to the individual carrying it. Due to the said code, our society ends up having both geniuses," Kakashi gave her a sharp glance on that, which made her smile for a fraction, "and so-called average persons, among which the different levels of intelligence and such can vary a lot." With those words, Tsunade pushed herself off the wall and turned to sit face to face with her two best men. "But this has nothing to do with the intelligence which is usually associated with the logical frontal lobes of the brain, but the more complex system what we call the limbic section, which also has its role in shaping the individual's intelligence. Ever heard of that?"

Not waiting for the former Hound to fill in the blanks, the sharp-minded sensei was already providing an answer. "It's the part of the brain that is more connected to the emotional decisions that are made, thus also affecting our social behavior."

"Correct in one go, sensei, not that it's surprising," Tsunade chuckled and then waved her hand vaguely in a circular motion through the air. "The limbic system of the human brain is the most crucial part for what we're currently having, since that specific system makes us do impulsive and instantaneous, even unconscious decisions whenever we're stressed, nervous, scared and so on. The most fascinating thing about it is that it doesn't necessarily require any effort from the conscious frontal lobe of the brain to ignite the needed actions, whether or not they fit the current situation. This means that sometimes people get beyond the point where they themselves understand what they're doing, not to mention remembering it afterwards." The waving hand was put to support the narrow chin when, for a brief moment, the tired amber eyes turned to look at the sky above them. "But in the case of a shinobi, there is a dilemma in that." The sharp clack of the tea cup hitting the floorboards told the men that the woman had turned her focus on them and was picking up the pace, most likely out of irritation. After a sigh of silence, a stern look took place in the keen eyes. Without further warning given, Iruka suddenly found his hand taken into his leader's rather tight grip and turned palm upwards. "Kakashi."

Before the baffled academy instructor could catch onto what was happening, a pale hand took a firm hold of the tan wrist, sending a massive jolt of electricity stinging the spasming forearm all the way from the fingertips to the elbow and then traveling a straight line through the whole body that tensed up instantly at the electric touch. After the shock died and the hold on his arm was released, it was only then that Iruka realized that to be his shocked shout that was echoing in the barriers around them. Not waiting to be caught the second time, the trembling hand was snatched back from the loosened hold and cradled protectively against the heaving chest of one immensely peeved and blushing mission room worker. Noticing that both of the other nins had already seen what felt like a very vivid erection tenting and already leaking precum against the fabric of his sweats wasn't really making him feel any better about his new embarrassing status update. "What the hell did you just-"

"We're not done yet, now I need you to touch the brat with the same hand." At the incredulous look she was given, a challenging frown gathered on Tsunade's forehead. "Well?" Grudgingly, the younger man turned towards the older, though the cautious, even worried look the sensei gave to the masked male was an odd factor in the equation.

The jounin didn't at first seem like he had even noticed the man, but after a moment, a nod with an encouraging, masked smile was given while the jounin offered his arm to the chuunin. "Aim well."

Tsunade couldn't decide whether the eye-roll the chuunin gave was meant for the whole situation or solely at the jounin's words, but still, the tan hand reached out and took a hold of the pale wrist.

Barriers or not, the passing flock of birds did change their course quite briskly to somewhere else above the light-gray house.

Not that any of the stunned shinobis could see that happen, since all of them were at that moment far too interested in taking in at the sight that was one silver-haired jounin straddling one gaping chuunin against the terrace floor. Frozen in place, the tan hand was still holding tightly onto the pale wrist that was now visibly shaking beside the tan man's head, while the other quintet of struggling fingers were currently keeping their iron hold onto a soaked, masked chin and pushing it at arms-length away from the man beneath the equally aghast-looking pale assassin, making the cold drops of water rain down onto the gasping man caught between the floor and the said male body. Where the jounin's mouth and other hand might have located itself if an other pair of hands hadn't also taken a good hold of the stilled man behind his well-sculpted back was a thought that not one of them was sure enough to say out loud.

Slowly and as gracefully as a thoroughly wet and even more aroused male body could, Kakashi untangled himself both from sitting on top of the other man and from the hold of his leader, and scooted slowly back on his spot before directing his gaze to the yard facing an other direction from the others. Cursing his sense of loyalty, the jounin had to wonder how it was still keeping him from becoming a missing nin right on the spot when he found himself sitting on a sunny terrace under the eyes of his recently jumped colleague who undeniably had felt his eager lower section pressing against the man's own and the Hokage who was revealing a side of her that he certainly wasn't willing to meet anytime soon.

"Regardless of what I've heard and seen so far, what happened now makes me doubt if the claim of you two not having sex on this mission is accurate at all."

On a second thought, maybe the rogue nins that the copy-nin had encountered on his missions did have a well-thought point for leaving their villages for good and facing the violent consequences. Ignoring the shocked silence from the pounced man next to him, the jounin turned his head to give his leader a strained smile behind the dark mask while a pale finger rose to scratch the dark fabric covering the man's cheek. "Maa, when you say 'have sex'..."

For the shortest minute, Tsunade asked herself if all of this was actually worth her troubles.

What a silly question.

And then the dice began their roll. "An event where two consenting individuals typically have an intercourse, which usually aims for them both having an orgasm, which in the affairs of the opposite sexes usually means male genitalia penetrating the -"

Cursing the mission to hell not for the first time during the eternally long and torturous weeks, Kakashi sat straighter on the floor, and after giving one final look of provocative silent insults to the blonde pest for forcing him to speak out the unspoken before he could dig himself into any deeper pit of humiliation, the masked mouth was opened. "We had sex twice, Hokage-sama." If anything, the bright fuchsia abruptly occupying the silently staring younger man's face to his left was the much needed last push for him to fix and detonate the awaiting tag he knew had just been a matter of when. "Iruka-sensei was also the one taking the initiative in both occasions."

Whether it was relief or poorly hidden disappointment crossing the blond-haired Hokage's face, Kakashi wasn't paying much of attention to it concerning how his existence was now put on a very sharp and thin edge of a quivering kunai. The pull of the painted lips did make his silvery brow twitch a fraction, though. "Is that really all-"

"HOLD IT."

As both the infamous S-class assassin and the legendary sannin turned to regard at the finely trembling young nin who had sat up from the floor and whose tea cup was now only a cough away from being annihilated in the hands squeezing it, Iruka took a deep breath he knew he needed to keep himself from unleashing his worst temper out to play as the words of the masked prick echoed throughout his head. The unreadable look taking over the mismatched eyes did very little to make him discard the strong urge to maim the man who had all but blurted out the things they hadn't dared to cough up all week, even less the past morning before it all had been shot to hell. All he could think of as a reason for it was that the ex-ANBU had finally thought out the perfect way to get back to him for what he had accidentally seen while they were in the toilet – which was a topic that his visual memory really shouldn't pull out to ogle while having tea with his superior commander and the bastard in question, especially since the currently burning desire in his pants didn't need any more fuel in that fire. "What do you mean with me taking the initiative, Kakashi-san?"

Unnervingly enough, the one-eyed nuisance was all up for dodging the question. "...Well, we could also count the other two times, since I did give you quite a hard-on during the massage and before that in the kitchen-"

The man was dead. "Forcing an elemental dysfunction that causes an erection on someone doesn't translate into having sex with the said person! All I know from that night is that you TRICKED me!" The twinge in Iruka's groin was apparently remembering that one.

"Wait, you tricked him into having an unwilling erection?" The look passing their Hokage's face made Kakashi's future uncomfortably long queue of D-rank missions seem quite tolerable. For couple of months, at least. Then again, sensing the quite determined killing intent radiating from close proximity where his mission partner was sitting, keeping himself away from the village for more than just couple of months started to feel also quite appealing.

"Who said ANYTHING about having A 'WILLING' ONE in the first place?!"

Not sure if he should be glad to see that the seething man shifted his annoyance towards an other target, Kakashi made a note that at least Iruka's volume levels were still as unmonitored as ever. The second when the narrowed, burning eyes that promised him hell and beyond turned back to him and were furthermore accompanied with a sharply pointing tan finger, though, he found himself being even more worried for himself when the previous yelling tuned out into a leveled, well-punctuated beginning of a lecture. "Furthermore, I don't know what kind of training you jounins get with applied psychology, but-"

"Well then, did you have a different story in mind as to how many times have you had these, say, intimate situations, sensei?" Tsunade's words sharply interrupted the rising lecture, and as if suddenly falling short with the amount of synapses needed to form a coherent logical answer to that question, the witty tongue suffered a stroke behind the open full lips while the whole taut body decided to pick that exact moment for practicing muscle control, the ranting chuunin halting in mid-scold in a way that made both the jounin and the sannin hope that the man hadn't injured himself in the process.

As quickly as it had been frozen open, the tense jaw snapped shut with an audible click of the verbal fangs. The quick, hesitant glare that was then shot at the jounin's vicinity made the leading medic's blond eyebrows rise up to meet the equally blond hairline. "..Well...uh..." Never before had the ex-ANBU and the legendary kunoichi seen a man grow so red so fast. The tea cup was squeaking for help through the abrupt silence, yet nobody heard its pleas.

A wide, evil grin spread on the painted lips so quickly that both shinobis realized instantly just how grave mistake the younger nin had done with his lacking reply. However, to Tsunade watching them catching onto her train of thought wasn't nearly as entertaining as seeing the tormented and embarrassed look passing the older shinobi's masked face. "Then is your mission partner correct with these numbers, Iruka-sensei?"

Fascinated, Tsunade observed as a fleeting, uneasy look was shared between the men before they both got pointedly interested in the immaterial dustbunnies that were waving at them on the terrace floor, since by now the two interrogated men had more than just confirmed to themselves that they were punished in so sadistic way that the merciless knuckles of their leader had started to resemble wings of a butterfly just gently caressing their now reddened cheeks on its way to the nearest dandelion. By the time the dark-haired and profoundly blushing chuunin academy teacher nodded, the needed data had already been collected and deciphered by one blond Hokage.

It was time to cut the chase. "Do you know what a trigger is, Iruka-sensei?"

The confused look passing the blinking chuunin's eyes made it difficult for her not to roll eyes to her admittedly stupid and self-explanatory question, but Tsunade held her poker face. Seeing the younger man realize that he was indeed waited to answer and then for him to search the correct words in order to answer without sounding demeaning towards his leader's IQ, Tsunade was also fairly impressed how well-composed the tan man was still acting despite unwillingly revealing things about his sex life to his leader while his partner in crime was glaring daggers at the floorboards next to him.

"...Um...in standard shinobi codex, a trigger is defined as a device or means to activate a wanted series of events, and the methods for creating it vary depending on the purpose and the situation where it's needed. It can be snapped, tweaked, pushed, pulled," by that moment the teacher had noticed that there were two pairs of eyes staring at him, which really didn't ease the cherry red blush from his heating cheeks as he continued the ramble, "kicked, stepped on, pressed, activated from a distance, hidden in a seal or done with a chakra wire and a bit of creative thinking, for its sole purpose is to catch or injure the wanted target and provide the needed distance for the operating cell to stay safe."

Mentally shaking herself out of the trance from listening the rather impressive definition of their basic combat tactics, and noting that apparently nervous academy instructors had their unique ways of handling stress and unexpected verbal minefields, Tsunade gave a nod and crossed her arms on her chest. "I see that Konoha's children are in good hands." Judging by the look on the man's face, the Hokage also guessed that the chuunin was determined not to elaborate any further in order not to trigger anything else that might embarrass him any more than he himself was capable of handling. "However, beside it being what you just said, a trigger in medical sense is a factor that activates physical or psychological reactions in the individual, either good or bad, and is sometimes even harder to detect rather than a chakra wire going between your feet while strolling in the woods." Calmly, Tsunade leaned over the pot and filled her cup, tilting the already cold liquid towards the sun, thus making the rays reflect themselves from the wavering surface while the hint of delicate flowers tickled her nose. "What makes them hard to detect and pinpoint is mostly because they don't happen instantly but within a time frame that can stretch from a week to years, even decades. The damage could be happening within the one's body even as they don't consciously register it, especially without any visible symptoms that could have warned them in advance that something was up. Needless to say, this is the type that I'm the most concerned about, especially when the limbic system comes to the picture." Lifting her gaze to meet a pair of silent shinobis, she knew the both men knew when they've reached the final conclusive point. For a moment, Tsunade almost felt a bit bad for the masked jounin.

Too bad they couldn't afford sympathy right now.

"You're in heat, brat."

Chapter Text

As they trained to be the best soldiers, spies and escorts, the shinobis of each hidden village had to learn the very basics of their combat tactics, clan specialties and traditions. Each village had given different values to the different fields of both offense and defense, depending on what kind of traditions their history withheld and how they were changed as the time went by – but none of the villages saw it beneficial to have a nin who couldn't recognize a trigger when dancing polka on it. For the genins, unfortunately, such misconceptions were natural to happen occasionally, although one blond genin in particular had somehow made it his unofficial mission to set a new record on just how many times one could walk into an obvious trap without getting anyone killed in the process, while in the same process making their jounin sensei remind himself that killing the Jinchuuriki of his own village with only the proof of sheer stupidity justifying it didn't look good in his resumé. That said, Hatake Kakashi was a man who didn't take shinobi's equivalent of trigger-happy lightly, which not only made him one of the best cell leaders in Konohagakure but also a jounin who would vehemently deny of having more gray rather than silver hair adorning his head after his pedagogical disaster with his first terror-toddler team.

A jounin who, at the current moment, sat under warm sunlight on a small terrace behind a light-gray house and who felt his world narrow down to the only source of warmth his suddenly numb hands still could sense, his whole being focusing down to the steaming mug of coffee held tightly in his pale fingers. A jounin who, despite known as a genius capable of hiding his thoughts even from himself if tried hard enough, was in that current moment, as much as he hated to admit, missing the three scatterbrains that were his Team Seven and the simple days of slowly forming wrinkles of worry that came with that particular territory.

"What do you mean by it, Tsunade-sama?" Like a snap of proverbial fingers, Iruka's voice pulled Kakashi back to the reality he had shortly ventured away from, the narrow gray eye giving a blink and finding itself drawn to the spoken man who had been sitting by his side for the whole discussion. The pink tinge on the high, scarred cheekbones was already lessening, but the way the man's mouth had set itself into a thin line was enough to tattle on Iruka's opinion about the whole situation, and the flick of the dark eyes towards his staring one made it perfectly clear that the chuunin had every intention to show his dislike concerning the newest development in their mission.

"I mean exactly what it sounds to be, Iruka-sensei." Hearing the lack of emotions in Tsunade's voice was the cue for the ex-ANBU to truly reel himself back on track, and the narrow eye peered its amber counterparts over the dark mask. Judging by the look he received from the blonde woman, he knew that his silent plea for her to continue was heard and acknowledged. "Due to the frequent uncontrolled electric current running through his veins, Kakashi's body has suffered a blow to its chemical balance, which has caused certain hormonal and neurological changes to happen within his systems, particularly the ones connected to sexual behavior, analytical thinking and the limbic system."

"Maa...that doesn't make sense." His voice sounded fainter to his ears than he would have liked, but Kakashi didn't dwell long on that as he was far more interested in the conundrum that was presented to him. "If I'm the one affected by all of this, then how can it be that Iruka-sensei is the one who was almost shoved into the bathroom cabinet?" A small noise which sounded like the said teacher had swallowed his own tongue was caught by his keen ears, but the jounin wasn't given an opportunity to look at the other man when his village's superior nin fixed him with a look that in some social circles could have been considered as means to provoke war between nations.

Tsunade held her steely gaze on the jounin before her, perhaps trying to decide whether or not it was beneficial for her nerves to punch him through the fence wall and beyond into the great yonder. After what felt like a small eternity, the rise of one well-plucked eyebrow could have been described as amused, if one thought that glaciers had human emotions to begin with. "As it's known, pheromones are connected to the social behavior between individuals of the same species, as they act as chemical triggers to launch certain actions that are connected to certain goals. Due to the said goals, the variety of pheromones is vast and also in many cases related to certain species. In human's case, they don't have as tangible role to our behavior when compared to insects for instance, as our species tend to be more visually oriented in their relations, but they still carry their role within our cultural codes. Yet despite knowing all of that it was hard for me to even believe that the results which we received from your samples weren't caused by contamination."

Settling for a brief pause, the Hokage gave a look at the small tea cup in her hands, looking like the answers to their current problem could have been detected from the fragrant liquid if one squinted hard enough. After a beat, the amber eyes locked themselves on the silver-haired nin. "Kami knows how or even why, but it seems that your body has started to produce not only hormones like testosterone, adrenaline, oxytocin and vasopressin but also axillary steroids such as Androstenone and Androstatienone in excessive quantities [1], only that it doesn't end there. Your system has also managed to manipulate itself so that your analytic frontal lobes of the brain have lost some of their dominance over the limbic system, which is directly connected to the problem we're facing. I wouldn't be surprised if your disinterest of informing me about the things happening here weren't actually from the reluctance of doing so but from the mere fact that you yourself didn't even know what had happened whenever one of you collapsed, and, as Iruka-sensei here mentioned, being too well trained to offer badly gathered intel to your superior." If she wanted to give their situation more drama than it already had by taking a sip from her tea before piercing her loyal jounin with a strict look, neither Kakashi nor Iruka were paying attention to it as they were too busy mentally preparing themselves for whatever the verdict was that was pushing its way past the painted lips. "In other words, your body is trying to convince you that you should mate with the closest suitable member of the same species, namely Iruka-sensei whose own body is responding to the given signals with its own rather unorthodox methods."

After a few moments, a courageous cricket decided to humor the silence that had made itself present on the terrace with three shinobis staring at each other with more or less tensed up shoulders.

"Personally projected reaction. Isn't that what was once said?" Listening to his voice putting out the words that now sat down in the middle of them three, Iruka was highly aware of the level of focus he found himself regarded with after a couple of seconds since the jounin and his commander had caught up with his murmur, and spent a moment to decide whether or not it was safe for him to lift his eyes from his empty cup to look at his leader, not being exactly sure if he would like what he saw on the woman's face. "Tsunade-sama, am I correct in assuming that my body reflects Kakashi-san's bodily experiences to some extent, if we view those spoken words more closely?"

"You may also assume that it may not be the brat who's the genius of us three," piped the amused voice of the said medic. The peeved scowl she received from the silver-haired man sitting next to the now very silent chuunin fell to the very bottom of her priority list as her keen eyes kept their gaze on the youngest of the trio. "But you are correct with that assumption, sensei. Based on what I witnessed during the first time you both gave us hell with your elements, it is safe to say that your elemental connection is way past its platonic phase since whenever Kakashi's lightning gave a reaction, it reached for your water and caused the aforementioned physical reactions. You were both unconscious at that time, so your bodies were dominant over your minds, which basically meant diminishing every social inhibition that you may otherwise possess and act upon." The men in front of her sat in silence, both the brown and the silver eyebrows furrowed as the men mulled over her report on their own as the minutes ticked by, and Tsunade leaned once more against the warm wall, noting that the sun was already pulling its course towards late afternoon. A small frown pulled the woman's brows when a very different question rose into her mind. "When was the last time you two have eaten a meal?" The puzzled looks of the two men gave swiftly way to the growls of their empty stomachs, and as well as she knew that they were in for a long day with hard decisions yet to be made, Tsunade felt a sliver of a smile grace her lips at the sheepish looks coming from her apparently famished soldiers.

Maybe they still were on the good side of the coin.

"It's only leftovers from yesterday's soup, but it should still taste good," Iruka said with an apologetic tilt of his eyebrows as he came back from the kitchen carrying a tray with three steaming bowls on it. As soon as the bowls were put on the terrace boards, the man took another visit to the kitchen in order to fetch the other ingredients for the late lunch, more driven by the hunger itself than the thought of actually fitting all of the food into their stomachs in Tsunade's amused opinion.

In any case, the soup smelled delicious. "You're too humble for your culinary skills, Iruka-kun," Tsunade called after the man's retreating back and was surprised to hear a humoring noise coming from the jounin's direction. Turning her growing smile towards the copy-nin, she was equally sweet with her sharply cut notion. "He does all the cooking here, doesn't he?"

The answering smile of the mismatched eyes sharpened the tip of the steely verbal blade wrapped in immaterial pink lace that could be heard in the copy-nin's countering question. "Are you insinuating that the soup doesn't suite your taste, Hokage-sama?"

"Is there something wrong with the food, Tsunade-sama?"

Sitting onto the immediate urge to start shedding blood, sweat and tears of the silver-haired brat's physical existence and reminding herself that their bio sample laboratories were more than well-provided with the said substances at the moment, the Hokage pulled a warm smile on her painted lips and then turned to appease the worried-looking sensei standing behind her back while making a mental note to ask Shizune check on the chuunin's current wage level. They clearly didn't pay the man enough for tolerating the bratty elite. "The soup is wonderful, sensei. Now sit down, I'm not finished with you two."

Torn between feeling both flattered and scolded, the chuunin put the tray of food down on the terrace, plopped down on his spot on Kakashi's left side and started wolfing down his soup without a second word or a look at the two others sitting with him.

The look on his Hokage's face was a clear question for Kakashi as to why was it that others seemed to get it without a fuss while he didn't even after the twentieth time. As a clear answer to that, he chose to ignore it in favor of more interesting topics – such as why he had ended up all wet and horny on an unassuming mission and moreover in the presence of his two colleagues. "Maa. Let's say that my element is the key factor here, and therefore Iruka-sensei's problems are only what we could call collateral damage coming from it," his small nod towards the tan man was registered and accepted by the dining chuunin, albeit a bit hesitantly, "yet I fail to see the true connection between it and the rest of the occurrences there have been until now.." If the others noticed that his fading voice became void of unnecessary lines in between which one should every now and then peek, the jounin didn't pay any mind to it since he was suddenly caught up inside the torrent of facts and clues. After a blink, the pale hands put down the untouched bowl of soup, and in a few moments, the renowned man of rumored thousand jutsus reminded the world why his head had earned its bounty in the Bingo Book. Kakashi, as many had learned, didn't mind the stares of others when he had more than just soup on his proverbial plate, and was about to start going through the ingredients one at a time, just like the both admired and scorned genius he was. Looking down at the assortment of food on the tray set between them three, a silvery eyebrow rose and the head having all silvery shades of gray tilted in silent question. After a moment, a familiar coffee mug found itself nudged in between a few unsuspecting rice balls, and a small huff was given beneath the mask at the sight.

The questioning hum rose from Iruka's throat before he could reign it in properly, and knowing the older man well enough to know when his comments weren't frowned upon, the chuunin lowered the chopsticks from his lips and pointed at the morosely standing mug that looked well out-of-place in the middle of yesterday's brunch. "What did you come up with now, Kakashi-san?"

The pale, bare arms were crossed over a darkly clad chest, and the narrow gray eye held its gaze on the plate of delicacies. "...I believe it to be some strange version of dietary mahjong, sensei," came the ridiculously seriously spoken answer from the silver-haired shinobi's side, and soon enough, the tangible hush of silence that fell between the two men was shattered by a loud bark of laughter spilling from the younger man's mouth that mixed with a few coughs of misplaced soup in the tan throat.

"I'll kill you, I'll seriously kill you one of these days, bastard," Iruka wheezed while catching his breath from his impromptu hysterics, the wide grin that was stretching his lips almost making his cheeks hurt. Dark fingers rose to wipe the tears from the dark eyes, and catching onto the passing pleased look on the jounin's masked face made a last amused snort leave the grinning man. "Don't look so damn proud of yourself, it wasn't that funny."

"Alright, seeing that Kakashi can still make a joke I can say to the psyche-nins that they can use the ward for someone else. Truly, that was underhanded, brat." Catching the glint of mischief and amusement in the gray eye when the masked assassin turned to look at the widely grinning dark-skinned man next to him, Tsunade was palpably surprised yet immensely pleased to see that the two men still were capable of being somewhat friendly with each other, no matter how threatened their cautious friendship had become in the passing two weeks when things had gotten pear-shaped with alarming frequency.

"Ah, but it did grant me with your undivided attention, so it did serve its purpose," Kakashi replied with a smirk of his own and thus gaining an amused snort from the chuunin, alas knowing perfectly well that the bright smile he was pleased to see stretching the other's full lips may not last for very long. As if catching onto his shifting mood, both of his current companions settled their eyes upon his creation, the silence making itself once again comfortable among them now that the peals of laughter had taken the hint and died from the air. They always say that the music begins with silence, Kakashi found himself musing and gave a dry smile at that. Let the drums begin. "Maa. Drawing conclusions is never fun with incomplete information, but one can always try. This here," the pale finger tapped at the rim of the mug, "is my persona. Then these," the stage was given to the rice balls, "are the assumed possibilities for triggers." Without wasting his breath on checking if the others were on the same track with him, the jounin took the topic from food to abstract. "It isn't all one-sided." Kakashi was interested to see if the had indeed hit the proverbial nail with his idea, the jounin directing a studying glance to his Hokage sitting across them.

He wasn't disappointed, when manicured fingernails tapped the edge of the mug and the blonde medic nodded her head. "That's true. Until now, the pattern had stayed hidden and after this morning it is clear what has been happening here, but now the elements have interlaced with each other so thoroughly that there's no longer distinguishing of the primary impulse that drives you to have these things happening to you. In other words, even though you're the one with physiological changes it doesn't leave Iruka out of the equation merely as a passive factor." Snatching one rice ball to herself, the Hokage spent a moment to contemplate the small lump of rice in her hand before taking a bite from it and then continuing from where she had left off. "You two already showed me that it has become unwise for you to even touch each other. That means that the dynamics of this phenomenon are shifting from active-passive stage to where both participants both cause and receive reactions in fairly equal terms. There still lingers the fact that it mostly has to be seemingly started by the lighting element, which may be just because of the discussed elemental power balance between you two." The sensation of sharp attention given to her figure did make her pause for a moment. "However, the 'heat' to which I'm referring to in your case may not actually be caused merely by your own element, but the combination of both lightning and water. As we have already established the fact that water conducts electricity, thus it being counterproductive against it, this could mean that your elements have linked with each other from the start. If that is the case then it would make it so that as opposed to the situation at the beginning, your reactions have affected Iruka's element so strongly through the continuous projections so that Iruka, who hasn't been aware of the changes happening inside him, has already also started to act on the impulses without his conscious knowledge, furthermore develop triggers of his own, as it appeared when you told me about his reaction to drinking water. That's why I actually doused you back then, in case you were still wondering."

The completely bewildered look from Iruka focusing on the rather appalled-looking copy-nin who had fixed his scowl on her made the Hokage scribble a tiny mental note to look into in a few moments. That was an interesting slip of a mask if she ever saw one. Nevertheless, she had a briefing to conclude: "At some point, the balance between the elements has leveled down considerately and therefore you have started to have both individual reactions without the other's contribution to it and also experiencing them simultaneously. In some sense, the ANBU does fit into this. If we think that Iruka's element has started to, say, "leak" out for other elements to reach because of Kakashi's lightning constantly pushing it over its boundaries, it therefore happened to provoke the unfortunate ANBU, who, as has been found out, was the worst target ever for Iruka to counter. Though we can't be completely sure about that, because we still have to look into the odd chakra channeling that happened between the brat and the ANBU, not to mention the one that has happened between you two earlier if I understood correctly."

"But how come my interaction with the ANBU was so different when compared to what I have experienced with Kakashi-san?" The dark eyebrow rose questioningly on the tan forehead and Iruka gave the silver-haired man next to him a pensive glance. "In most cases, even if the ANBU's element was hitting it off with mine, I didn't get any symptoms from it until this morning, and even then the result was at odds with what has happened so far. Moreover, that doesn't explain why is it that our elements don't react to yours, Hokage-sama."

"It could be the power balance, perhaps the stars aren't aligned straight enough, or I'm just not compatible with your charming personality," Tsunade said with a faint shrug while downing the rest of her tea, enjoying the baffled silence that lasted for the precious two seconds it took her to hide her self-congratulatory smirk behind the cup. Shizune would have thrown a fit for that one. "Whatever it is, I don't have an answer to that yet, unfortunately, since the man who can give me some answers is still a bit under the weather thanks to some wannabe-Icha-Icha-hero punching him not only through some wooden doors but almost through a wall." The sound of strangled cough made both the tan mission desk tyrant and his sake-oriented commander look at the man trying to hold in his coffee from staining the insides of his dark mask.

Deeming that the jounin will live as well spotting the light red flush creeping over the scarred cheeks of the other man, the words continued their flow from Tsunade's mouth while she filled her cup once more, albeit with more somber note that soon enough caught the males attention: "What I can say is that it can be connected to the relationship you two already have formed between yourselves and the ANBU's relation to you, Iruka-sensei, and this is where the limbic system has the crucial role. Like I said before, it affects our behavior, even so much sometimes that our emotions can get out of control whenever the individual gets pushed over their limits. Yet it is also the glue that keeps people together by the way we learn to read one another and adjust our own social skills to work with others, seek the ways to work with our emotions that we feel towards one another. You may think that that's how empathy is created, for instance. However, there we have a problem in that." Admiring the way the sunlight wavered against the light-colored tea's surface, the ruefully smiling lady let her mouth carry on speaking. "As you both surely know, when it comes to training a shinobi, the first things that are learned besides knowing how to kill is to know how to control oneself. We're always told that nothing else is important but completing the mission, and as one result the bonds between mission operatives are commonly forced to be as neutral as possible to avoid disastrous breakdowns should something happen in combat. Moreover, we're being held responsible and loyal ultimately to nothing else than our village, which can be sensed in the everyday encounters where there's always something that is left to be unsaid between friends and colleagues, even lovers. We are forbidden to share too much of ourselves, to show emotions during a mission, and even back home it takes time for some to even remember how it felt to smile and speak relatively freely without having a constant goal to figure out the underlying webs of deception that come like second nature for all of us." Despite the saddened chuckle easing itself past her lips, the hint of regret and resignation in her words didn't change. "It could be even claimed that there is only one fear for a shinobi, and that is showing the others what one really thinks and feels."

"Unless you're Uzumaki Naruto."

Both Kakashi and Tsunade turned to stare at the softly smiling Iruka who gave his scar a passing rub, a social gesture all too well-known for others acquainted with the man. "Well..that is, all you said is written in my curriculum in the academy as it is repeated throughout our profession, but I'm quite sure the number one most surprising ninja in Konoha would have a few words to say to that claim. Fair enough, I doubt that he would be in this kind of situation to begin with if I understand what you're implying, Tsunade-sama." After giving a fleeting look to the ex-ANBU next to him, glad that he was able to lighten their moods somewhat judging from the quiet huff being heard beneath the silver-haired man's dark mask, the dark-haired chuunin turned his unreadable eyes towards his superior nin.

"It's the ingrained sense of self-control for a shinobi which we have that is the actual primary trigger, isn't it?" Kakashi's low bass resounded around the calmly spoken words before Iruka could say them aloud himself, and the three nins spent a moment on letting the words float above their heads. Slowly, a pale hand reached to pluck a rice ball next to the forgotten coffee mug, and the deft fingers twirled the food between them as the silver-haired nin continued to further peruse this phenomenon that had caught him into its own web. "Maa, in that case we were partially right about the emotional stress being a trigger here, but just didn't see the whole picture because it wasn't what either of us could figure out because of our traditional training. Then of course there are the subjective triggers, which weren't making it any easier to pinpoint what exactly caused the elements to behave as they did." Suddenly, the jounin's gray eye turned down to stare straight at the tray of food still left at their feet, the pale fingers still holding the solid rice ball in their tightening grasp.

Soon enough, a sharp intake of breath was heard beneath the mask as the elite shinobi seemed to pull himself back to the surface from the depths of his thoughts. "Maa...An ANBU operative shouldn't have any emotions to begin with while on duty. In other words, the more we fight against the primal instincts, the more the elements get fueled up against us and cause new symptoms." A gasp of understanding was heard from Iruka's side at that, but Kakashi was already directing his next thoughts into a far more hostile territory that opened up its borders, and sooner than she had anticipated, Tsunade was reminded exactly how sharp minds Konoha shinobis had from cradle to grave when the lone eye searched out her own. "That fits with the odd delivery we had yesterday."

After a moment of silent puzzlement, a pair of slanted brown eyes on a scarred face gave a blink of a dawning conclusion before serving the Hokage a pointy glare sharp enough to pierce her forehead.

"Took you long enough to click the pieces together," Tsunade mused with a thoughtful frown on her young face, which soon turned into a speculative glare. "Do you wish to say anything else, brat?" Judging from the flashing mixture of pride, shame and unease in the narrow eye, she sensed that the lightning user in question may not have thought through the situation he just put both himself and his teammate. When facing the music, Tsunade always thought that she had a rather good sense of rhythm. "Yes, the charts that we were able to draw from your samples were indicating to the same direction, that there was happening a clash of interest and your body didn't seem able to discern what would be the best course of action for it. As your medical supervisor, I decided to put you into a...test, if you wish to call it that, to see what would happen when the ongoing process was given a push to one certain direction. In this case, lessening your social inhibitions over some good food and drinks. Not to worry, though, I didn't use anything with lasting effects, rather than just some mild mixture of medicine to help the alcohol buzz much more pleasantly in your systems that I told Teuchi-san to mix into your ramen portions – and he thinks it was only some stomach medicine and vitamins so keep your mouths to yourselves around him on that. However, I hadn't anticipated that you two had actually started a small war here with the elements rather than being the smart ones of the lot who would have patiently observed the occurring changes in your relationship, which has lead us to this point of discussion." At the look passing Iruka's eyes, a finger was lifted to silence the probable objection to her phrasing. "You two are in a relation to one another at the moment on some levels and this ship is about to sink if we don't find the leak and fix it, hence I will call this a relationship if I want, Iruka-sensei, no matter how much you dislike my choice of words."

After a rather incredulous look given at her words, what sounded like a mutter for getting more tea and coffee drifted from the chuunin's mumbling mouth and as gracefully as he had been trained, Iruka swept the tea pot and the mug in tow on his way into the kitchen. Tsunade let her eyes sweep over the food still untouched on the tray, knowing that she didn't need to watch her other subordinate to confirm where the gray eye was looking. Neither of them needed to wait for the chuunin to reappear, as it took one spy to know the other and respect the art of listening discreetly from a safe distance.

"So basically you had us both drugged and drunk in order to see who tops who here." On the other hand, Kakashi was never the ace with overly polite behavior. The loud clink of porcelain disturbed the otherwise steady thrum of white background noise, but wasn't speculated over, as Kakashi also could distinctively pinpoint when his intestines dropped themselves through the terrace floor, making room for the rush of adrenaline that filled the void that was left inside him when he had finally caught up to a thread of clues that seemed to be the tied tightly to his impending demise. On an other note, the jounin recognized yet another familiar feeling rising inside himself, something he was also fairly well acquainted and rather keen on letting loose – rightful indignation.

"If you wish to put it that way then yes, I did." Before the situation could escalate into what the blonde medic could sense to be the greatest display of fireworks their village had yet to see, the fuse was promptly stomped beneath her sharply barked words, which seemed not only to be meant to put her jounin back into his rank but also to be clearly heard by the tan man still eavesdropping them from the water boiler's vicinity. "As the head operative for this research mission, I am fully aware of the risks included in intervening a natural process, but if you failed to see, we may also be running out of time to clearly distinct what is the mechanism that has driven you to this point and if this point is already beyond repair."

Now even the kitchen area was void of even a shush of noise, and over Tsunade's shoulder, Kakashi could clearly see the moment when Iruka's body froze every movement by the counter over the brewing beverages. The jounin swallowed a curse as the dark brown eyes turned to look directly at him, knowing that he had the chuunin hanging onto every syllable coming from his mouth. "...Are you saying that this might not get reversed once we get out chakra back, Hokage-sama?"

"Unfortunately the possibility for that does exist. We don't know how permanently this has affected your bodies, so it would be rather stupid of me to assume that everything would just miraculously fall back into normalcy the moment we unseal you. The worst-case scenarios of this mission have already given me an arrhythmia to last a lifetime and I happen to value my intestines enough to make sure that the eagerly forming ulcer will not be encouraged any further." As for what kind of story it may have been for her liver, they all decided to leave it unmentioned. Her thoughtful eyes wandered over the empty soup bowls while the painted lips pursed in a small frown, as if they had trouble deciding whether or not to let the words through them. "When you admitted to have had sex twice, what exactly did you mean by it?" The deafening silence hitting her back made the Hokage first to look up at her jounin, who kept his rather terrified-looking eye solely fixed over her shoulder, and slowly the woman turned to follow the path of the gray eye, witnessing a sight of a very tense Umino gripping the pot and the mug in his tan hands like a rookie samurai would be gripping a wakizashi and shield when facing the shogun's thousand men while standing on a cliff and wearing only his getas.

Knowing that both of the men had surely survived worse than what that mental image could provide, Tsunade carried on, reminding them why exactly some people in their ranks thought Godaime to be more ruthless than any other Hokage before her. "Let's cut the chase, shall we? I have now told you where we stand considering your laboratory results and we need to draw some decisions from this discussion." Two strong arms were crossed under her bosom, and a sharp look was served at both subordinates when Tsunade looked both the jounin and the chuunin. "Are you willing to make me assume, based on your input so far, that you've actually had an intercourse during these past days when obviously neither of you know what to do with yourselves when your elements act on the impulses, if we look more closely on what happened just a few moments ago, not to mention being merely just hung-over due to the drinking and embarrassed from today's events? Like I said, I'm willing to believe that there's more to this than what you have been determined to tell me, but I'm also not an idiot. I can see when things aren't adding up accordingly." The steadily suffocating darkness in their leader's eyes didn't leave any room for survivors to escape. "Whoever feels like going first can start."

Like the men frozen on their places, the silence that fell over them didn't know where to look at either.

After a few slow beats, a silent sigh left the lady sitting in between. "I see." The lacking emotion in the notion was a loud and clear declaration growing frustration, as if that had been the only outcome possible for the earlier demand.

The click of high heels pulled the men from their thoughts, and they found their leader standing up and smoothing her green overcoat with a pensive expression etched on her youthful visage. Kakashi cast a fleeting look at the worried-looking younger nin before standing up as well. It appeared that their audience with the Hokage was nearing its end, but that would be odd as they still seemed to have dozens of issues to debate over and have answers to the questions plaguing their shared mission. "Hokage-sama?" The masked man almost flinched at the hesitant note his words had, but held his posture without a single twitch of a muscle.

The addressed lady gave a calm look over the sunny garden, noting the lingering humidity in the air and the still glinting puddles on the muddy ground. The next words were spoken peacefully yet with so strong ring of authority that Iruka found himself reflexively tightening his hold on the still warm china. "Based on what has been said and done, I can either force you to cooperate with me in this situation or abort this mission altogether, but as you both have already observed, it is unusual for the Hokage to mess with the mission parameters unless they're exclusively needed to. This is the point where that decision is made." There was no need to put the brewing doubt into words. Neither was there any desire in her to re-ignite animosities on her behalf. "I will come back tomorrow with two more medics, hopefully one of them a Hyuuga if can get one of them re-scheduled, and we'll give you both a thorough screening to see more clearly what should be done considering the rest of the mission. I expect to get good answers then. Therefore I would suggest that you use the rest of the day for cleaning up the mess and doing some heavy thinking in order to give me a proper report, since I won't be this lenient the next time we meet under these circumstances. I do not need any extra drama in this village and that blond brat won't be too happy if he ever found out that his both senseis inexplicably disappeared during his absence." There was also a hidden hope that she wouldn't stumble upon a homicide the next day. With those last thoughts and threats left lingering, a flash of hand signs later there were only two very quiet men standing on a terrace behind the light-gray house.

The expression on Iruka's face looked like the stripped samurai had finally discovered that the odds against him were anything but fair, and to be fairly honest, Kakashi didn't feel like he was handling the suddenly granted privacy any better at that moment.

Even without the careful clearing of the throat echoing like an earth jutsu gone awry, they both knew that the older man was listening what the younger tried to say in hopes of dispersing the rapidly accumulating awkwardness. "...I'll clean the splinters and see what I can do to the floor, Kakashi-san. You can finish your coffee and soup in the meantime. We can both see to the doors and clean the bathroom after that." Alas, try as he might, Iruka wasn't so sure if the muscles on his face were on the same page with him for forming a disarming smile.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the copy-nin spent a minute considering how well Naruto would take the news about his sudden death in the hands of the boy's former sensei. Ah well, this time was as good as any that they were going to get. "I hardly believe that the training room's current condition was the mess that Tsunade-sama was referring to, Iruka-sensei." In an instant, the uncertain smile disappeared from the tan face, and the jounin swore that the chuunin's suddenly straightened spine resembled an iron pole for a fleeting second. It was also the very second the spoken Sharingan user needed to know that the final spark to ignite the barrel of gunpowder that had long ago been buried between the two nins had finally flickered back into life.

"You really wish to start a fight with me, Kakashi-san?" While speaking, the tan man's dark brown eyes drilled their gaze into his lone gray. The clear sighting of surfacing fury on Iruka's face had cooled itself down to a hard mask of unabashed intention to hit where it definitely hurt, or more preferably incapacitated, and for the shortest moment, Kakashi mused if the coffee mug was still held in the strong hands just to make it easier for Iruka to behead the jounin with it.

It seemed that his life would soon shorten remarkably if the heated look burning his masked face by the younger nin was anything to go by. Seeing that he was still breathing, though, and wasn't already half-way decked through the floor head first, the copy-nin of thousand survival one-liners fixed the silently fuming man with a deceivingly calm look and chose to use what may be his last breath to change the severe death sentence hanging above his head to only light pummeling. "What has given you such an impression on my motives, sensei?"

"There's no point in trying to open a game when you know you're already being figured out," came the smoothly spoken answer, and Kakashi could already spot the slow tensing of the arm muscles on the tan body. "Mind you, I have interacted with genin who are more subtle in their effort of evoking aggression than what you have shown me today. Maybe you should have copied one of those methods with that eye of yours. Then you would know that baiting and provoking someone who has been able to closely observe you the whole time when Tsunade-sama was here is a futile attempt to try make me lose my cool and gain the upper hand that way."

Inch by inch, the accusing tongue of the younger man forced itself under Kakashi's prickling skin, and the jounin was able to physically tell his patience growing alarmingly thin on every tick counted. "Maa, I have done nothing of that sort and you know it perfectly well, Iruka-sensei. If you are referring to what I assume you are, as a cell unit leader I had to give my report to Tsunade-sama when she demanded it, no matter how piss-poor information we had managed to scrape together, and forgive me for bypassing your valuable opinion about it but you yourself haven't exactly been the "Chuunin of The Year" regarding what has happened on this mission when it came down to certain things. I had no other choice but to give her my own answer, no matter how one-sided and subjective it was. It was either telling her what has happened or risking on getting us both a penalty for disobedience."

If possible, the chuunin's grip on the coffee mug tightened even more on every passing word, but Kakashi knew the other man relatively well enough to know when the signs were an actual warning preceding an assault. What he was seeing was a mere social signal of growing distress, and for his surprise he was rather much welcoming it. More than that, he suddenly had the urge to, as had been said, provoke the situation some more. He gave a brief pause in a mock display of having an abrupt revelation, and was quite pleased to see the flash of unease in the other's eyes. "You know...I had a couple of days to myself when you were out of it for a while, and after doing some thinking on my genius part I'm tempted to suspect that you're not so much afraid of me as a man but rather as something that I more likely represent." Even when they were levelly spoken, the words struck the budding argument like a killing blow, diffusing the gathered heat from the air and making way to a sense of ominous foreboding that took it upon itself to sharpen the claws of chaos. Brown eyes were fixed on the narrow gray, nothing giving away the shock their owner was experiencing except for the slight widening of them.

Then, gradually, the darkening brown transformed into finest steel, and when the smoothly ringing voice of the warm baritone made the air thicken between the men, the former ANBU saw the shift happening in the other man's body towards readiness to an assault as the tan legs slid into a better position for a quick charge and the lean back tensing like a carnivore on the hunt. "That was a bark I wasn't anticipating from you, Kakashi-san."

Kakashi's combat instincts perked up attentively at that and the copy-nin wasn't so surprised to see that he had already shifted his weight more evenly on his both legs. His body was gearing up. Apparently so was his mouth as well. "I have many things in me that you won't be anticipating, sensei."

In slow motion, Iruka's broad shoulders flexed ready to pull the large back muscles into action, yet the most interesting detail was the gleaming eyes matching the voice that had been dropped in octaves and risen in temperature, the words formed by the scolding heat permeating the silence one by one. "Let me be clear here on one thing, Kakashi-san. The amount of money from my head may not be much when it comes to our ranks, but as a man I'm way more worth than what you're currently bargaining for. We may not be trained to be humans, our missions do not rely on our sense of empathy and our rules forbid to mix-breed emotion with duty, but it shouldn't take shinobi training to discern what happens when one pushes the trigger one too many times." The ring of the drawn blade was unmistakable, and the very air solidified into a thick wall between the quiet men, curling like a tight cocoon around them and hushing all noise away from inside it, creating what one could describe like an immaterial barrier designed for private combat matches.

On one side, the gray narrow eye kept its unwavering focus on the target before it, the pale body twitching one nerve at a time back into life after so many hours of lax submission under a superior command, the rising blue lightning gaining power from all that had happened to the body harboring it; all the confusion, humiliation, desire and uncertainty piling in a heap, one unresolved riddle on top of the other. On the other side, one nerve, vertebrae, vein and muscle at a time, the tan body let go of the control it had held onto for so long, so many years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds, so many moments when the odds have been amazed on how it had always been regained, no matter the circumstances.

Inhale.

A faint buzz of electricity crackled high against the barriers, but both the dark-haired chuunin and pale-skinned jounin held onto their unrelenting eye-contact.

The gong of nearby shrine echoed in the distance and reverberated like a sonic wave against the silent walls surrounding them.

Exhale.

A release of tan fingers, and the coffee mug dropped from the hand holding it, soon meeting a quick foot that caught it in the air before flinging it towards the fixed target that was already on the move, the pale body launching itself into action the moment the porcelain projectile made its whistling way through the air. Loud clinks of shattering ceramics and blobs of food spilling from their dishes destroyed the remaining silent ambiance as sharply as the smashing object that hit the wooden food tray that was grabbed and lifted to meet it before it could reach its silvery goal.

A moment of shush, then, "You're going to pay for that one, sensei. I liked that mug."

"Saa, had I known you'd get sentimental over one mug, trust me, I would have thrown the whole set at you," teased the voice of the younger nin and that was all Kakashi needed in order to know the other's position behind the tray, which provided him not only a suitable range but the needed tactic. Not relinquishing his hold on the tray, the jounin spun on his heels, tilted the tray into horizontal position and forced the other man to duck down in order to avoid losing his head when the wooden makeshift blade whooshed through the air in a wide swing. The tan body crouched down under the traveling tray, and with a lunge and roll forward with the pot still dangling from one hand the chuunin went past the striking jounin and ended up amidst the abandoned soup bowls and scattered remains of what had been their lunch. A pair of chopsticks was snatched in tow by the nimble fingers before the chuunin was forced to retreat with hurry away from a viciously slashing tray cutting the air like a demonstration blade for a wind affinity. Iruka kept himself low yet moved with sharp jabs from side to side as he danced away from the lethal kitchen object. He would need to change his tactics of offense as it seemed that they had now picked their weapons of choice.

What he didn't anticipate, though, was for the jounin to show him just how resourceful their rank was for treating everything as a weapon, and soon enough the chuunin understood why the other had been so keen to drive him away from the food mayhem. With a graceful crouch and sweep, Kakashi scooped the clattered dishes and food as best as his could back on the tray, and before the briefly stunned chuunin could figure out the best countering move for it, without stopping his sweeping momentum the former ANBU captain spun around yet again to gain enough speed for the tray, and just before it would have left his hands the silver-haired man thrust the tray forward and then suddenly stopped it in his grasp, thus letting the items on it continue their fly and all but serving the mistreated food items and dishes through the air as an impressive aerial attack that Iruka put in his mind to study and cultivate if he survived what was yet to come. If that maneuver could be adapted to suit a pencil case – well.

Soon enough, a hurtling piece of onigiri slapped his forehead and thus the teacher was forced to get back on track, the downpour of food not only obscuring his vision and forcing him on defense by blocking and dodging the day's menu, but being a downright nasty trick considering the state of the recipient afterwards. Not paying any attention to something that smeared itself onto his ponytail as he duck his head and dashed to the side, Iruka spied a movement happening a bit closer than was healthy and flipped his body on its back on the floor, just barely avoiding from getting knocked to the head with a miso soup bowl that zipped over him. Too bad it didn't keep him from being soaked in the cold soup that Kakashi had never gotten around to eat. That insufferable bastard. With reflexes that many senseis had obtained during their teaching careers, the tan teacher's hand followed the path of the tossed bowl, grabbed it in the air while suppressing a growl when his fingers sloshed in the remaining soup and then made it take a sharp change of direction to where he had spotted the certain silver-haired nuisance moving. He didn't stay put to listen and see if the ammo hit the target, knowing how stupid that always was, but scrambled back on his feet, the pot and the chopsticks held in the same hand, and looked over the carnage of edibles – his spine crawling with unease when there was no sight of his opponent.

Where -

Suddenly, a hum of lightning grazed his right side from behind and broke the dark-haired man's body into minute tremors, but now he had the direction to dodge at. By stepping to the left and turning around to deliver his blocks, his upper arm met with the flat surface of a tray as he let the pale man's kicking leg hit the back of a thigh instead of his kidneys – the erupting flash of blue blinded the men for a short moment when the two bodies made contact, and strings of loud and colorful curses drowned the groans of distracting physical reactions. Seeing his opportunity, Iruka seized the tray he had managed to take a hold on and threw it to the sunny yard like a disc, the splashes of puddles counting the bounces neither men were keeping tab of. With another kick to the pale legs and a few running steps steering away from the other, Iruka disengaged himself from the physical contact and took a path towards the kitchen area, his keen ears distinguishing the steps of the other following from the thumping of his accelerated heart beat. Deeming that he would not make it in one go, the chuunin dropped into a low crouch and spun around to face his pale-skinned shadow, feeling passingly smug in seeing the surprise glinting in the gray eye before swinging the tea pot upwards to hit the silver-haired man's masked jawline. He wasn't disappointed to see the man dodge it in a nick of time, since the following countermove where the pale hand took a hold onto the pot and yanked it towards the older nin was all the cunning chuunin had hoped for.

A blink of the gray eye met the smug brown, and feeling a grin tug at his lips, Iruka slid the chopsticks through the small hole on the pot's lid and then nimbly turned the pot upside-down and opened the lid by yanking the sticks while on the move, letting all the lukewarm reddish-brown tea flow out in an arc that splashed delightedly on the tight dark singlet the masked man was wearing. Flinging the dangling pot lid from the sticks at the cursing jounin made sure that the coffee drinker knew the hot-tempered tea addict didn't take wasting his brews lightly. Then, a sudden surge of temptation tickled his body at the sight of the strong-scented tea hitting the taut muscular body, and acting on instinct more than an actual plan at that point, Iruka passed his hand on the droplets still lingering in their fall and felt his insides heave a long breath before a bruising wave of water materialized wide and long from the touched droplets and hit the ambushed jounin's chest before the man could react, sending the other fall back from the force a good feet away.

Without waiting for the imminent retaliation that was sure to follow once the other had gained his slippery footing, the chuunin adjusted his tightening pants with a hissed curse, turned and ran into the kitchen, his mind already pushing away the ache in his boxers and categorizing the possible items he could weaponize within seconds if needed. Spotting the golden-colored box was all he could manage before his senses screamed in alarm and he spun around only to be greeted with a pair of chopsticks pointing straight at the tip of his scarred nose.

"I think the fridge and the kitchen cupboards don't need to be emptied to make this scene any more ridiculous as it is, don't you agree, sensei?" The cool, low voice of the jounin holding the chopsticks made a shiver travel down Iruka's spine, and the chuunin's hands and legs gave a twitch on a sudden desire to flee from the steel-hard look in the gray eye. For a moment, only the sounds of heaving breaths and tea drops dripping on the floor were heard. The happy crinkle of the mismatched eyes did very little to fool the frown on the copy-nin's masked lips. "On the other hand, there are only a few who had ever managed to soak my gear this often as you have these past days. To be honest, though, it's getting a bit old."

"Yet you still fall for it every single time, Kakashi-san," Iruka heard himself taunt with a mocking smile while at the same time felt his back flex in preparation for a move, be it either offense or defense. Unfortunately his mouth had already thrown the caution to the wind. "Then again, seeing how you look in the wet gear I would hardly complain about it if I were you."

The passing glint in the jounin's eye was all but innocent at that point. "Maa...if you're fishing for compliments, let it be said that you don't look so bad yourself with that mix of bean paste and rice in your hair, Iruka-sensei."

The chopsticks snapped into readiness behind the broad, tan back, but the grin pulling the full lips was deceivingly lax. "Saa, I certainly hope it to be only that, since I was sure at one point there to be something more solid lodged in by the feel of it. One never knows when dealing with masked men." Then, a rush of intensifying focus made them both suddenly aware of the shift happening in the room's ambiance. As always, Iruka's tongue was first to react on it. "...Did you actually hear what the ANBU said to me the evening when you saw him cornering me in the kitchen? He said that you're 'also a man'." A raise of a dark brow met frowning silver ones. "Peculiar phrase, isn't it? At first I thought that it had something to do with him finding out some..facts...but the longer I thought about it, the more I began wondering what else he could have meant by that slip." A change in balance from right to left, a tilt of the dark-haired head, and Iruka slowly took a step to one side, noting the quiet jounin mirroring him on reflex.

The Sharingan user was focused and his body stretched taut in both muscle and nerves, the chopsticks held unwaveringly in one hand towards their designated point at the sun-kissed nose. Behind his mask, Kakashi was silently counting.

Noticing it, Iruka took yet another step, then another, making them slowly circle each other in the small kitchen, their very beings not paying mind to anything else than the thrumming tension vibrating and snapping between them. The look in the teacher's eyes was heavier than his running mouth made his thoughts appear. "A shinobi isn't supposed to pursue his own goals.[2] A mission doesn't need an individual who thrives for his own reasons, as well as the Hokage doesn't need a shinobi who cannot distinguish his own interests from village's own, just like Tsunade-sama herself told us. What we need isn't more than the completion of the mission. But in the case of the unfortunate ANBU...as you said, the Black Ops should be the last to view themselves as human rather than mere tools – yet this one man created himself a need and acted on it. But, even though we did speculate on it, I could put my money on saying that he himself may not know what he ultimately needed." Four more steps.

Three. A snake of lightning coiled tight in the pit of Kakashi's stomach at what was said. The gray eye peered over the dark mask, the look in it rivaling the steel the jounin had learned to master since he was five. "That was an intriguing analysis, but it still leaves out the fact that I think you know exactly what you need, sensei."

A faltering step matched the irregular thump of Iruka's heart. The chopsticks behind his back slid into a position like a kunai. Two more left. A sliver of a smirk was forced to appear, buying time and patience. "Baiting me again, are we. Ah, but then again, thinking of getting it isn't the same as actually getting it, neh, Kakashi-san?"[3]

A pause. "Naruto really did report every single thing to you."

Slowing in step. A twitch of the hand not holding the chopsticks. Easy now. "Three bowls of ramen and that boy tells me not only which eye you leave open when feigning sleep but all of his theories concerning your masked face as well."

A shallow chuckle, more meant to taunt than humor and the silver-haired head cocked to one side when a calculating look was given at the suddenly stilled man at the other end of the bamboo sticks. "Ah yes, he showed remarkable concentration on that personal quest. Though even when this mask is driving half the village insane, I didn't know that there were people who would run away and fortify themselves into a bathroom the moment when they see what's under there."

Surely enough, the tease hit the mark this time, turning the dark brown eyes from smoldering coal into blazing fire despite the other's obvious efforts to play it cool, but instead of lashing out like he would be predicted, Iruka reached behind himself, and a clack of polished wood was all Kakashi got as a polite heads up before a golden-colored tea box tossed by the chuunin sailed towards his silvery head. Using the hand holding the sticks, the jounin struck to the side and put the box on a new path while the pale body continued the hand's momentum and spun on the balls of bare feet in an attempt to round on the stumbling sensei – only to jerk backwards when another pair of bamboo sticks almost skewered his temple when the younger man continued his attack after what appeared to be a clever ruse. When the pointed utensils flew past his head, a familiar scent traced its nails over the masked nose and made the jounin's breath hitch at the same time when his blood flow was hijacked going straight to south. A haze of blue flashed before the gray eye, but the jounin knew now enough about the happening occurrences in him to regain his senses and answer the other man's stabbing sticks with a vicious cut, the clatter of wood ringing like a match bell. The following sounds of scuffle bounced off the walls and furniture as the trained professionals of espionage started the wordlessly declared second round on matters that had started to surface both despite and because of their efforts, throwing the kitchen area into a frenzy as thin and pointy utensils, usually used for eating, met with loud snaps of bamboo during the exchanged blows, cuts, strikes and blocks – the scene of the brawl flashing in blue on every occasion a skin contact was made and the sparks of chakra clashed between two wildly battling elements, the freely flowing sweat drawing electric, buzzing arcs of light in the air all around the fighting pair by following the paths of the swinging hands and twisting bodies.

A stomp, a cut, a strike, a kick, a blow, a feint – the battling hands and stepping feet blurred into sounds of hitting blows and sizzling blue, the steady flow of grunts, groans, curses and shouts having a cutting edge equally sharp like the delivered hits. In Kakashi's faintly amused notes, Iruka seemed to have something to share about their kenjutsu curriculum for teachers, the sensei making the jounin work for his fame with accurate stabs of the chopsticks hitting from all sides while the dark-haired man kept him on his toes with precise footwork, showing skill that had not been visible for the copy-nin during the Twenty Cups. Then again, being drunk and all that may have had something to do with that one. Forced out of his swirling thoughts with a stab that went a bit too close to home down there and thus needed to be definitely blocked, the men stilling over the locked chopsticks with wood grinding against wood, Kakashi took an opportunistic moment to observe his counterpart. Iruka's eyes were more alive than he had seen in the past few days and full of mixing emotions, the main ingredient being indignation apparently, the high cheeks were flushed, full lips parted to pass air more freely in the lungs. Not to mention the man was looking like someone who had decided to slide through a banquet, the cacophony of the more or less sticky, clumpy and colorful substances spotting the man's dark clothes and the grains of rice striking a strong contrast against the man's dark hair and skin. Not to mention the pieces of a rolled omelet tangled in the hair made the clumped ponytail look like a rather cute headpiece instead of a hair-do, but supposedly the younger man wouldn't agree on that if he said it out loud. Then again, the copy-nin was hardly in any better condition with his soaked shirt, now smelling of a baffling yet not so pleasant mixture of strong pu'erh and sweat, his hair in disarray with half drooping limply over his Sharingan and half pointing in every direction of the wind, the face mask was damp and irritating again – and his muscles were complaining loudly about their mistreatment, adding a few mild sprains and twists aching on his ankles and calves.

Breathless panting permeated the air as the men measured one another over their crossed makeshift weapons, fatigue and aggravation mixing in equal measures with every breath taken greedily by the adrenaline-driven killers. Tan hands held their ground against strong pale ones, the wood wailing under duress. Iruka's lips were drawn into a firm, serious line, matching the dark, burning eyes that Kakashi could feel burning his skin as he kept contact with his gray eye, neither of the men pulling away nor pushing any further, their arms holding the sticks pressed together in a steady flow of strength and weight between them – the ripples of enticing blue-tinted desire coursing through their joined link, making their breaths longer, heavier, the time and space distorting and reconstructing into what matched a slow thud of a heart beat, every tick and wisp of air pulsating like the very blood running through the veins of the two shinobis - - then, a hush of calm washed over them, as if the world they lived in had ended as abruptly as it had once began.

They say that the momentary hush right before the storm hits is when one can sense the time stop in quivering anticipation.

Then, gracefully like it had been trained to, the pale body pushed itself into motion, and Iruka's skin erupted into the creeping tremors of desire traveling up his legs and the rest of his already longing body when his eyes drank in the sight of the bunching and smoothing muscles of the man he had so many times already touched, shared a lunch with, showered with, so many times threatened with bodily harm should he disobey the orders of their ranks. The spark of blue electricity nipped at the tan calves that were frozen on the spot, it filling the younger man's body with an adrenaline high and he more felt than realized his body jumping into action, the chopsticks swinging down while his other hand shot up.

Now, the shinobis were thought to be many things, both respected and detested, admired and feared, and they, as the samurai clans, were referred to as masters of armored weaponry, their masks and ninjutsu replacing the helmets and metal chest pieces. But sometimes both of the warring professions were given the reminder of times when the best course of action is to lose the masks and put down the weapons – because when they fall, the man hiding behind them falls as well if he can't stand baring himself in front of his life.

A clink of bamboo meeting something solid and smooth preceded the stunned silence, and the widened gray eye found itself staring at a shard of neatly wrapped porcelain shielding the expressive dark eyes, the tips of the stopped chopsticks pressed against the tiny piece of china held confidently in the chuunin's hand. Kakashi's heart gave an unsteady thud as he recognized the wrapped parcel, but took up the lost speed once the implications and intentions were thrown into the mix. Gradually, little by little, the gray eye drew its focus back and gained a familiar gleam in it, and the clothed, broad chest expanded on a deep inhale of air, the sound of long breath echoing in the deafening silence like a strong explosion of wind while the buzz of lightning crackled in the background ever so subtly. In silence, without moving a single muscle, Kakashi observed the man in front of him.

Unarmed.

The shift that overtook the tan, attractive body, the look of indecision that passed in the dark, deep brown eyes, the pull of the full lips as they seemingly couldn't decide whether to open or stay forever closed. Then, shortly, the eye contact he had kept with the chuunin broke as the expressive eyes were closed, and for a moment, Kakashi felt his heart stumble over its beats. However, as they opened, it was like a new set of eyes was looking at the masked man, who felt his pulse quicken when the piercing, heated gaze captured his masked features in a hold of molten iron.

Then, a coy, soft smile completely at odds with the look in his eyes spread like wildfire on Iruka's lips, and while his muscles flexed and twitched back into life after the moment that seemed like eternity with an anticipation that threatened to break his very core with its tight squeeze, the dark-skinned teacher felt his stomach flutter almost violently as the quietly whispered question left him with one shuddering breath.

"..Did you catch me, you idiot..?"

Unmasked.

With a snap of the pale wrist, a pair of chopsticks embedded themselves into a nearby wall, the chinks of cracking wall plaster pinging on the hard wood floor like a dropped wind chime, not that either of the men were interested in that small detail as the other pale hand stole the show by ripping off a piece of dark fabric from covering something that made Iruka's lungs stop their functions and his libido to skyrocket into frightening heights, making him almost miss it when the rarely seen lips formed a syllable and the pale, strong jaw moved around a single word. "Foul."

"Trade -" The instinctive reply was barely out of Iruka's mouth before it was claimed in a heated kiss and his mind exploded into thousand pieces when the entourage of carnal lust, raw attraction and burning desire crashed the party of his common logic, pouncing on every single sane thought too slow to escape the beasts that had been kept at bay too long and were well on their way on making their freedom count. A long, starved groan rumbled from the tan throat and within a blink, the tightly held shard of china was dropped to the floor from fingers that buried themselves into silvery mane, pulling, twisting and holding onto the fair hair like a lifeline. He wasn't sure who slipped whose tongue into whose mouth first but knew he didn't care one smidgen, as all the teacher could feel was how agonizingly hard he was, how every single synapse in his body was singing high and low at the same time, the nerve connections flaring in a white flame when a lightning bolt surged inside him and overcharged his systems. Iruka felt his barriers cave in around him one by one, felt his body readily giving up on feigning the defiance that had finally worn him down, the stubborn denial finally surrendering itself to the flood of sensations that had so many times already asked to be acknowledged.

A roar of electric thunder arose from around the passionately embracing men, not that Kakashi was paying it any attention when all he could see behind his closed eyelids was flickering blue and sense the intoxicating scent of sexual appetite matching his, the smell of heavy musk mixed with strong black tea and the sweet aroma of aroused male hitting the deepest corners of his nostrils and making him shiver on each inhale. The strong hands roamed all around the willing body held in his grasp, appreciating the well-trained back muscles, firm buttocks, broad shoulders, narrow waist and the rather sticky hair-do. Passing that thought along, the pale fingers snapped the hair tie from caging the brown hair before taking a good hold on the long tresses and pulling the fervently kissing man off his swollen and bitten lips, the raging urge rattling his very being making him attack the tan throat with his lips, teeth and tongue.

A cry of ecstasy left Iruka when a set of teeth grazed the side of his throat, leaving a sizzling path on their way to his ear, and he knew he wasn't red only on his face the moment when a slide of a tongue moistened his burning earlobe and made him discover whole new octaves in his voice scale. A sudden turn tilting his blurry vision didn't first even register in his mushy mind, but the solid wall hitting his back did. The slam of hips against his made him forget the wall and the house it belonged to altogether, and very distantly he could hear both himself and the man ravishing him release a mutual rather vocal expression of appreciating the provided friction as the first shock wave of release took them both by surprise. Not that their enthusiasm was deterred by such a thing. If anything, legs and hands re-positioned themselves in better positions without further thought and the following steady roll and bucking of clothed hips grinding together picked up pace and the echoing pants, growls, mewls and moans replaced the oxygen in the room, the saliva mixing in the kissing mouths by the shameless tongues slipping and curling against each other. When Iruka finally managed to hitch his legs up and around the jounin's hips and not only press them even closer so that the delicious throbbing of the other's cock felt like it was a part of him – oh, yes – but angle himself so that the throbbing organ in question could introduce itself to another place in him that needed some attention – a small part of his mind miraculously sobered up on that idea. "Ka-"

Apparently the man humping against him was indeed a genius to his name. Without an uttered word, the jounin dislodged them from the sturdy wall and let Iruka set his trembling feet to the ground before grabbing a good hold on the flushed sensei's ruined shirt and pulling it over the dark-haired head and tossing it to someplace neither of them cared, the jounin's own top meeting the same fate. At the sight of the pale well-sculpted chest and the hardened rosy nipples, a darkly pleased rumble rose from the tan chest and before anyone could blink, the jounin found himself cornered against the bedroom door by heated kisses and rough gropes marking his bodily map.

Kakashi's mind, at this point, was useless. Utterly useless, reduced to only blips of dazed consciousness keeping him still breathing, informing that he was still fully hard and desperately ready for what was on its way after some rather wild orgasms, and not concentrating on anything else but the writhing man in his arms who gave his both lower cheeks a bruising squeeze. And he was thrilled to bits by every second it lasted. Pushing the frisky academy sensei away from nibbling his Adam's apple before turning them both around and pressing them against the wall next to the bedroom's closed door, Kakashi got his mind cleared enough to remember how to turn a doorknob and pull open the door to let them continue their match in an other setting. Once the road was clear, a pang of lightning bolt later that left them both panting, the jounin took a good hold onto the fervently kissing sensei's shoulders and lead them blindly through the doorway.

A rather delightful twist on his both nipples made the jounin growl.

Fingers hooking onto his waist bands and pulling both the pants and dirtied boxers off enough for a steady hand to take a good hold on him made him bite back a howl.

The teeth biting into the curve of his neck and shoulder made the howl tore itself free from his throat.

A chuckle, a turn, and Kakashi's swimming vision took a new angle as he was shoved on something with a soft thud. A pair of hands let a flow of electricity dance on his stomach, hips and across his legs, all the way to the nails of his smallest toes as his pants were pulled off in one swift pull. Soon enough, a warm, naked body landed on top of him, embracing him in the slide of sweaty skin as a hot mouth claimed its ownership on his tongue, the battle for dominance still ongoing with the passionate press and slide of tongues, caressing hands and tangling feet, the men on the futon disappearing into the feel of the other's body, losing their individual outlines and merging into one being humming in high-charged energy.

A grip on the flexing hips, a slide of slippery fingers in between with a keen cry resulting from the progress of things, and Iruka felt his insides let the control snap in one go as he pushed eagerly down on the new sensations, the wetness inside him slipping and sliding on every roll and snap of the tan hips, his lungs struggling for every pant leaving his mouth that was hanging open and his heart pumping in the same rhythm as he was riding the pleasure. The tan body jerked and twitched on every pulse of mind-numbing electric impulses, the weight of the man lost in his high leaning on tan arms that were pressed against a shallowly breathing smooth chest of the man beneath the other, the man whose fingers were as deadly in bed as they were on the field.

A dazed dark brown met the molten steel gray, a devious grin on flushed face making the revealed teeth bite on a reddened bottom lip, a grasp of a hand twisting the other away, a pump and a second following with an exclaimed vowel, and finally the tight wet heat of one enveloping the other making the room echo with simultaneous cries of climax washing over the battle grounds. A thrust, a roll, a bounce, a cry, wave after wave they crashed the shores of indescribable sensations and rose together into the unknown stratospheres, the movements of the quivering stomachs, pushing hips and tensing legs never ceasing – a wrestling grip of the pale hands on strong, tan arms and a flip with a smooth roll to the side, and the barriers surrounding the light-gray house vibrated in the setting sun with the following loud crackle of thunder overcharging itself with a string of screamed profanities encouraging it. The slaps of skin hitting skin in maddening staccato punctuated every gasp and pant leaving the two men lost in the throes of their passionate match, the tan trembling legs holding onto the moving body above them like letting go would be the end of them both, the strong hands clawing the sweaty and hot back, adding scratches among scars, the redder the higher they climbed, the stronger their hearts beat together, the closer they were at the silver bells that started to chime in their jumbled minds, mixing with the sounds of their bodies and souls that were so tightly wrapped around each other, so tightly, so closely, so close, so close, so close – a hoarse cry erupted from the dark-haired man's throat as a sting of teeth biting into the aching spot on his neck hit where it mattered, shoving him over the edge when pure need and darkest want conquered his mind, and he didn't care, he rode the tidal wave that begun from his toes and ended up crashing inside his feverish mind that became undone, bursting through him like the release exploding from inside his loins, hard, forceful and oh so satisfying, his gaping mouth releasing a soundless roar at the hot fluids hitting their mark deep within him.

Like a machine that finally ran out of steam, there was a common release of breath when the pair came to a stop, the naked bodies left entwined together in one heaving heap of muscle, bones and hammering pulse.

After what felt like the small death releasing its suffocating hold on his jugular, Kakashi crashed back to the reality with a long, hoarse sound that was a distant cousin to a growl and a whimper. His ears were ringing, his eyes didn't seem to get the hold on blinking synchronically, his brain gave a pathetic peep before shutting itself down for an indefinite time, and not only did he gasp for air like a fish on dry land but his intestines felt like they had played the chair game without his permission. The gray, narrow eye squinted in agony as he tried to focus it on nothing in particular.

He, to put it bluntly, was an utter mess.

"..Ka...oh..kami..Kakashi..san..?"

Not that the heaving body under him sounded like faring any better.

Making his physique to give a new try, the jounin scraped enough energy together to slowly ease himself on his trembling elbows and peer down at his partner who was well on his way on drying his damp hair by puffing air at his neck. What Kakashi saw when the gray eye eventually found its focus made him summon a quiet chuckle from somewhere in him despite his own physical and mental state. The sensei, the average nin's common model boy for propriety and professional performance, looked like a victim of a food orgy gone terribly sideways at some point. The dark hair spilled all over the futon they had fallen on, bits and pieces of what used to be parts of something recognizable smudging the linen and tangling the long hair into bushy clumps and stick it in every direction possible on the horizontal plane. The flushed face was drenched in sweat and accentuated with what seemed to be some sort of marinade, the full lips were bruised and swollen, and as the final cherry on top, the dark eyes peering up at him were fighting a losing battle on keeping focus on the unmasked face they were staring at.

Though the chuunin seemed to catch onto the jounin's rising humor as a bright, if a bit smug grin spread on the blushing face and the words were quietly spoken in between heavy breaths. "You..don't..look like..a cover boy..yourself...bastard."

Now Kakashi couldn't prevent the faint chuckle from coming. "That bad, huh."

An answering chuckle from beneath met his own. "That bad." Then a grunt came from the tan man and the jounin took the hint, easing himself off and out of the other with a hiss coming from them both before slumping bonelessly next to the sprawled man who slowly stretched his cramping limbs into a better position now that there wasn't a pale body lounging between the tan legs.

During the following few minutes, all that was heard was the attempts to steady the breaths and hearts for them both, the brown and gray eyes unseeing as the men spent the silence to replay the events leading to their present situation. Not a look was shared, not a comment was made, the faintest sounds of evening traffic making their way into the household through the open doors.

"..Well...I think we can ditch the 'san' now..." The words were out of Kakashi's mouth before he even caught himself thinking of them, but wasn't so surprised to feel the lacking of nerves. However, when he gave a look at his side where the chuunin was, the jounin was surprised to catch a rush of red on the high cheeks. A silvery eyebrow rose on the pale forehead and Kakashi mused that it wasn't everyday when he himself felt like blushing at the sight of someone blushing in bed with him. "...Maa, you can't possibly be blushing over an offered drop of the honorific after -"

"Finish that sentence and there is no 'after' for you," snapped Iruka's sharp tongue with a tone familiar to them both, which did ease the sliver of tension that had sneaked up on them. After a minute, the chuunin turned to look properly at the hesitantly smiling jounin, the dark-skinned body soon following the turning gaze and rolling on its side facing the silver-haired man lying on the same mattress.

Kakashi gave a blink at the swirl of emotion he spotted underlying beneath the unreadable look in the other's eyes. After a beat, he turned on his side and fixed a long good look at the man in front of him.

Then, as if asking for permission, a tan hand cupped the unmasked cheek and held it.

With a smile splaying on the rumoured hidden lips, the man who the smile belonged to leaned into the touch. "..Draw..?"

After a beat, a small smile reached the corners of the dark eyes. "..Draw."

Chapter Text

The dusk had faded, and the creeping shadows both lengthened and darkened all around the village where flickering lights started to illuminate both the streets and the houses between which they curved and crossed each other. The gentle buzzing and cricking of insects filled the quiet air of the early night, the sounds of crickets and alike informing everyone about the changing seasons. The faint music of nature flowed over a high fence wall surrounding an unassuming, light-gray house, it settling into the quiet corners and slithering up the bare walls, not minding one silent jounin who was crouching over a mess littering the weathered floor of the terrace, the pale hands of the masked man gingerly picking up broken shards and upturned bowls; a squeak of piping coming from the bathroom further inside the house made both the man and the nocturnal sounds give a pause in the cooling night.

After a hushed minute, a lone gray eye peered over the darkening backyard of the small house, and the lean legs straightened up as the well-muscled body righted itself from the squat. Slowly, the bare feet descended the steps to the yard and strolled across the damp and muddy ground towards a flat piece of wood that stuck up from the soil in a rather violent angle – the tray that had had rather unfortunate luck in the previous hour. The man stopped looming over the ill-treated serviceware, and the tilt of a silver-haired head tattled of a passing thought as a lone eye took in the angle and the depth in which the tray was embedded to the ground before the said tray was dislodged from the mud, given a shake to clear the excess dirt and then taken back to the awaiting pile of more or less cracked and dirty dishes. Sounds of quiet footsteps echoed through the house as he ascended back on the porch, and the silent man gave a passing glance at the training room through the open double doors. At the sight of an other, equally quiet man standing in the middle of torn tatami mats and messily exploded wood, measuring up the splintered sliding doors that still hung limply from their almost dislocated rails, the pale jounin paused his doings.

“I could help you with those.” His words dissolved the silence with the efficiency of a small explosive tag, and Kakashi gave a small cough to dispel the urge to face the other direction when the pony-tailed head of the other nin whipped around and the startled brown eyes fixed their look on him. A myriad of social masks flickered over the tan face before they settled for polite acceptation on the proposed action.

“Ah. Well. That would be the wisest,” Iruka said before flicking his eyes to look somewhere else than the gray eye that still held its focus on him. “I can also clean the splinters from the floor first, if you're busy over there,” came with a vague wave of a tan hand.

One look at the carnage of edibles by his feet, and Kakashi made an easy decision. “No, I don't think that these are going anywhere at the moment, so we might as well get those down before they come down by themselves,” he said while putting down the tray for later use and stepping into the training room, carefully noting that Iruka wasn't the only one who kept some distance between them as opposed to previous days. Knowing that he himself wasn't really feeling any solid ground beneath his feet right that moment either and wasn't too keen to test his luck after what had happened so far, the ex-ANBU turned his attention to the miserable remnants of two doors and cocked his head in a wondering angle; the sense of tentative camaraderie that fluttered between them two despite the tense air was a welcomed feeling. “So. Which one goes first?”

“It seems to me that the half of the left one, which isn't scattered all around the floor here, is easier to take down without the fear of tearing down the whole railing – I suppose. Can't be too sure, since the right one appears to have had taken less damage, but looks can be deceiving,” Iruka ventured as he stepped next to the other, albeit keeping a few feet away, and his unsaid appreciation over the jounin's discretion and respect for the much needed personal space for them both didn't go unnoticed. “If you could hold the door from the other side and I hold from this side, we may get the upper part down without damaging either it or ourselves in the process,” the man spoke as he already trotted to the end of the rail and peered up at the doorframe, searching for any blocks or cracks that could prevent them from successfully removing the ruined door from its frame.

Kakashi nodded and stepped over to the other side of the door. Then he took a firm yet cautious hold of the door and gave it a testing rattle to see if the rail indeed held. A sudden sneeze made him almost tear the door down with sheer surge of adrenaline making his arms twitch violently, and the masked man peeked over to the other side to see what was happening. Surely enough, the jounin was greeted with a sight of one embarrassed chuunin rubbing his scarred nose vigorously, a sight which made the masked mouth stretch into a sheepish smile. “Ah. Sorry about that.”

“No harm done,” came with a sniff and a following cough. “Shouldn't have stuck my nose that close up. Well,” with that, the scarred man flashed a grin, “ready over there?”

“Whenever you say,” Kakashi mused with a sliver of a smile on his face and took a better hold on the door once more. If he noticed Iruka shortly hesitating where to put his hands so as not to touch his, he left it unmentioned. The sudden tease of an electric buzz was enough to make them both pause for a dreadful minute, before they both released the breaths they had held as the tremor of air went past them.

“...Alright then. Let's give it a go,” he heard from the chuunin's side, and slowly, Kakashi started to lift the door up on its rail, feeling its grip edge beginning to dislodge from the track it had been resting on in the rail after initial resistance, the edges of the contact piece letting go with a short, shrill squeak that made the both men wince on their respective sides.

They both held their attention on the piece of the annihilated door while they listened to any tattling cracks and creeks of wood that could be the warning of getting something else than just half of a door dropped to their heads as they shared its weight between them. Kakashi spared a quick glance at the tan fingers curled up around the door's edge, the strain in the other's hand muscles visible to him. “Everything alright there?” An answering grunt came from the other side, and the jounin took it as it was. Slowly, the two nudged the door off the rail. “Easy now.” This time, a barely suppressed snort came from Iruka's side, and the jounin rolled his eyes at that, not minding the warm smile playing on his lips at the other's blatant show of opinion about him saying unnecessary things to a teacher who had plenty of opportunities on his average days to repeat those exact words to both children and adults alike. The door swayed slightly in their firm holds as they slowly eased it resting to the ground between them, both letting out a mutual grunt of relief the minute the heavy wood touched the floor and no sliding tracks fell upon their necks.

“Let's put this aside for now,” Iruka said and patted what was still left of the door before taking a good hold onto it and lowering it lying on the floor with the help of the pale man who was quick to assist, them both taking a step back from one another as soon as the door left their hands. Then he turned to observe the other door, which had taken considerately less damage, yet it had been exploded outwards and thus split in half from the middle, leaving a lower and upper half missing contact with each other; the upper part hanging sadly without its counterpart, the lower leaning precariously the way it had been blown to.

Seeing how the brown eyes inspected the damage, Kakashi turned his face to the other direction and scratched his mane of silver hair in a way that spoke to bemused Iruka about something the chuunin hadn't quite expected from the other man, and yet what he had trouble to discern. “Maa, you know, we could also leave that to ANBU, as they will likely install us new doors.”

“Now there's something that a regular chuunin doesn't hear everyday,” Iruka mused in noncommittal tone while consciously turning his gaze back at the task at hand and not letting it wander over the mane of silver and the darkness of the mask, never mind feeling with every hair of his neck the look that the jounin was giving him. “The mystery of the classified S-ranked missions, finally revealed.”

The silence managed to hold its poker face for the full two seconds before both men, the equally feared chuunin and jounin, burst into laughter that chased the nearest crickets away over the fence.

“I should tell Tsunade-sama that the next time we see her; tip her off that you're onto us,” Kakashi chuckled and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm as the laughter died down, it giving space to the far more amiable silence he was pleased to note lingering between him and the younger man after the initial awkwardness that had been brewing between them since literally taking their disputes to the mattress. “Don't ask her to lower our wages, though, that would be bad for business.”

“I would never,” Iruka stated primly and quirked an easy grin at the second rumble of laughter that came from the older man. “Though as tempting as the idea is, Tsunade-sama may not share the same thought, and frankly I've had enough close encounters with her temper to keep a low profile for a while,” he continued and strolled over to the other door halves. “I hardly think that the imprint of her fist makes my scar look any prettier than it is already.”

“Maa, do I hear some self-criticism there?” Kakashi inquired with a humored drawl while he too stepped to the doors and pressed at the lower half of the door that had almost been torn out of its rail with his foot, feeling it give away under his heel before feebly bouncing back up, an agonized creak accompanying the motion.

“I didn't say it was ugly, did I,” Iruka retorted with an absent tone as he watched rather worriedly how the lower half of the door wobbled in its track. They might as well pluck that one right out, it wouldn't do difference to the damage that was already done to the poor thing. The ANBU might as well change the whole lower rail, once they were onto it. Then something completely else caught the sharp eyes.“Why are your feet all muddy? I thought you showered before me.”

“I had something to retrieve from the yard,” came the calmly spoken reply; yet the one slender, dark eyebrow that rose on the tan face as the chuunin leveled the jounin with a look that many troublemaking pre-genin students knew by heart already was enough to make the ex-ANBU swallow.

“Sometimes you make me wonder,” Iruka muttered and gave the jounin a look that booked no place nor time for rebellion. “The showers are right behind your back. Go on.” As the pale man complied the order, not without letting his silent opinion be known if the dry stare of the gray eye was anything, the chuunin focused his mind back on the dilemma of demolished doors, though not without a wondering shake of the dark-haired head. Jounins: people who knew twenty ways to cross a river without getting a splat of water on them but at the same time were perfectly capable of leaving muddy footprints all over tatami mats like a courageous three-year-old flirting with the danger that was their parent's wrath.

“The mats were pretty much ruined already, you know,” Kakashi's lazy voice drawled over the sound of spraying water. As he cleaned his toes, the jounin felt he wouldn't have been so surprised if he had caught the chuunin make a face at his turned back.

Then again, if the tone with which Iruka spoke could have made a face it would have been positively glowering at him. “Has your field training ever included the idea of salvaging all that is still of any use? I don't think Tsunade-sama grants us the luxury of new mats before we can convince her that we're mature enough to keep ourselves from further destructing this house.” The strong arms were crossed over well-muscled chest and the copy-nin had to strain his hearing to catch what the other muttered under his breath. “I wouldn't be surprised if she really did put us in a tent when tomorrow comes.”

“Maa, that wouldn't be too far-fetched, I agree with you there.” Deeming his feet clean enough, the jounin stopped the scrubbing and rubbed them dry with the nearest towel, the man then turning to meet his mission partner who was apparently contemplating the life of a lint on his shirt sleeve with the level of scrutiny that made his idly twirling thoughts halt. “Iruka?”

Jerking away from the inner workings of his puzzling mind, Iruka snapped his head back up so fast he shortly feared his neck would cramp. “Hm? You said something?” If the way the older man had said his name without the formal suffix made a fine tremor travel down his spine, the teacher made damned sure not to show it before they both really knew where they stood.

The silvery eyebrows furrowed in a slightly concerned frown. The look the elite had caught flicking in the other's eyes made his insides tug into a small knot. “Are you alright?”

For their both defense, the both shinobis, men who had made lies and masks the tools of their trade, knew they were reading way too much into that seemingly small and easy question at that very moment.

To his surprise, Kakashi got to see how a shadow of a smile made its pass on the full lips of the other man who spoke with a baritone far warmer than his avoiding gaze was. “Shouldn't I be asking that from you as well...Kakashi?”

It seemed that neither of them had missed the page they had stopped upon, but Kakashi wasn't sure if he was all ready to cross the t's and dot the i's as the clock ticked closer to ten in the evening, after the day they had had in the house. After the initial afterglow of sex had worn off and they had gradually been forced to face the fact that they had to decide where to go from there, the jounin had made the suggestion of getting a shower and then cleaning up, conveniently disregarding the large elephant that was the issue of their very shy tongues on matters that mattered, and thus giving the chuunin space to put his own thoughts back on track. It seemed that leaving the younger nin in the bedroom had been the right choice as opposed to taking a shower at the same time, since they had managed to not look like awkward teenagers by the time Kakashi had come back to dress up and Iruka had went to the vacant bathroom. Now, it seemed, the elephant was catching up on them. “...Let's take that door down.”

“Alright.” The nod of the dark-haired head was too ready and too pronounced to be anything but a way to shoo the looming proverbial mammal away to bother someone else for the time being, but the jounin decided to keep the commenting at minimum, for he was sharing the other's state of mind at that point.

Slowly, they rolled the door a bit further away from its lower counterpart before cautiously nudging it off and planting atop the one taken down earlier. Silently they worked, neither of them keen on voicing out what had just happened in the earlier hours of the day, quietly agreeing with one another that it was a discussion that should wait until they have had enough time to regain their balance. They kept the hands to themselves, their heads bowed, their eyes from meeting each other for too long, as if being unsure of what they would see in the other should they look too long – or what they'd be showing to the other about themselves. There was no need for words as they pulled the lower door half off the rail, it giving an ear-shattering screech as wood hitched against wood none too gently, making the men grimace. Soon enough, three miserable pieces of what used to be grand wooden doors lay in a pile between the heavily breathing men, both of them assessing the damage for a minute before a cough from the chuunin cleared the heavy atmosphere that had settled on their shoulders.

“Why don't you continue what you were doing over there now,” the tan man said and gave a curt nod at the direction of the terrace behind Kakashi's back. “I think I'll manage the rest myself.”

Appreciating the tact offer of giving them both much needed distance from one another, Kakashi nodded and took his cue. “Fair enough. I'll see that the terrace gets clean.” Without further notice, the jounin turned his back at the other and strolled across the scorched and torn floor as casually as his peers knew he could, ignoring the heavy feel of intensely looking dark brown eyes on the skin of his rigid neck. Before they had even noticed it, one elephant had turned into two, then three, and the further the slow minutes ticked into the night, the stronger the presence of a silent wall of hard and immobile bodies of air built between them became.

The kitchen looked like a scene of a poorly succeeded D-rank mission. That was the first thought that came to Iruka's mind as he looked at the chaos of cluttered tea sieves, coffee tins and dishes on the counter, the cupboard door that was still cracked, clothes that lay scattered haphazardly on the floor and the very off-putting sight of two chopsticks sticking out of one wall with a pile of wall plaster on the ground below. Having cleaned the splinters from the training room with a broom and a dustpan, the chuunin had walked into the kitchen to put the litter into the trash, only to stop on his tracks as he finally registered the sight that he was currently staring at.

At least he had a good excuse to avoid thinking about the state of their bedroom for now, and seeing that the jounin was still hunting for the stains on the terrace with the rags and the buckets of water, even if Iruka himself doubted he could have seen anything in the darkness where the jounin was currently hustling in, the teacher decided that it was as good time as any to clear the kitchen before the older man came back in. After turning on the rest of the lights on the kitchen counter, the splinters were put to the trash and then the counter top was swept clean and the cluttered things were put in their respective places. Missing a box that usually had sat next to the larger one gave the chuunin a pause before the man turned to search the floor for a golden-colored tea box. Soon enough, the little box was spotted lying lifelessly next to a wall it had apparently hit, if the small dent on the wall was anything to go by, its contents currently littering the floorboards – a sight that made the tea-addicted teacher frown in dismay. With a couple of quick steps, the dark-skinned nin reached the box and gingerly knelt to inspect the damage; luckily none of the pouches seemed to have torn open on the impact, nor did the box itself seem to have taken any damage. Whatever wood type there had been used, it was surprisingly tough. In a few minutes, the teas were put back into safety and the polished wood gave a clack as the box lid was closed. After a gentle swipe of a calloused palm, the little box found itself put back next to the larger one on the kitchen counter.

Next off were the clothes. The passing heat on the tan cheekbones was unsurprising as the man set on picking up the damp and rumpled shirt and top from the floor before unceremoniously tossing them into the laundry machine under the counter. A beat of indecision later, the man took a detour to the bathroom, and soon enough the laundry machine was filled with dirtied clothes; the dark brown eyes were determined not to note the state the clothes were in, the ruined boxers and soiled sweats passing swiftly through the nimble hands on their way to be cleaned. A turn of the switch and a press of the button later, the thrum of the machine set on a night-wash program filled the quiet kitchen. After giving himself a nod over the finished work, the dark-haired man gave his surroundings a brief look, and then went to pluck the chopsticks out of the wall they had pierced. The dark eyes peered at the pointy ends in thought, as it appeared that chakra or no chakra, the man Iruka was currently playing house with wasn't really lacking in physical strength. A flush of heat traveled down his body at that thought, and Iruka had to close his eyes to keep in the sudden urge to puncture the wall further with the same chopsticks. By taking in a calming breath and counting to ten for a good measure, the distraught sensei managed to chase the passing flow of tension out of his system before it had the chance to take it to any other levels. They did not need any of that now. With a sharp turn, the chuunin took a step to take the chopsticks into the kitchen trash, seeing that they were pretty much beyond help after being used to substitute a drill, when a glint of white against the dark floor caught his attention.

The night was dark, and Kakashi gave a silent sigh as he finally admitted to see more shadows than stains against the wooden floorboards. The light from the training room or the kitchen weren't any help anymore, either. They'd have to continue cleaning in the morning, then. The pale hands gave the last scrub on the wood and then tossed the used rag back into the now cool water in the bucket, and the jounin took them into bathroom where the bucket was emptied and the rag was rinsed under the faucets before put to dry stretched onto the bucket's rim. Then the lanky man walked back to the terrace and took the filled tray with him, glancing at the heap of shards, unidentifiable mushes of food and the remnants of mismatched bowls and cups, the shattered remains of his coffee mug laying on the top of the sad-looking pile, as if accusing the jounin of its unexpected and ungraceful demise.

In some sense, Kakashi found himself agreeing with the mug.

However, he was pulled out of his thoughts when he entered the small kitchen, and the gray eye took in the cleanliness and order that had yet again taken its place in the little space. He must have spent quite a long time on the terrace for the younger man to have time to clean the whole kitchen area. Not to mention starting to do laundry, now that the sound of the washing machine was taken in by the keenly listening ears of the elite. The chuunins of their village were really the oil that kept their machine functioning like clockwork, the jounin found himself quietly agreeing with that claim.

Yet none of those things really mattered when he turned and was met with a view of one chuunin in particular squatting low on the floor, the nape of the dark-skinned neck visible and the broad shoulders hunched as the other nin was seemingly looking very closely at something in his hands that were hidden from view behind the lean back. Yet the copy-nin could distinguish the second the shinobi in question sensed his presence, as a very fine edge of tension took over the man's figure. With all things considered so far, Kakashi couldn't blame him for that. “Yo.”

“Yo yourself,” came the calmly spoken answer. Then, what sounded like a clearing breath was taken, and the chuunin rose back up to turn and greet the other more properly. “The training room should be alright now, and I did some cleaning here. How is the terrace?”

“Maa, it'll survive, I guess. We'll have to take a look tomorrow to see if I missed any spots,” Kakashi said, deciding to let the other keep to himself what he had been doing when the jounin had found him, then turned on his heels and placed the tray on the counter. Then, the silver-haired man counted the second he felt they needed before he warmed up his voice to sound what he hoped to carry the contrast of light and laconic tones in it at the same time. “I do hope that these weren't the only dishes we had in this house, though. Otherwise we may need to offer Tsunade-sama sake straight from the bottle tomorrow when she comes to visit. Although I don't think she'd complain about that.”

“She'd probably welcome it,” Iruka's voice carried over the jounin's shoulder, with the faintest trail of amusement in it, as the chuunin stepped standing next to the older shinobi by the counter. “Now then,” a tan finger pointed at the pile of paraphernalia resting on the tray between them, “is there anything that we can still use?”

As a silent answer to the question, a pale hand plucked out a single rice bowl, and Kakashi gingerly placed it on top of the pile. “This one. It has a tiny chip in the rim, but otherwise it should hold liquid and solid foods.”

To his credit, the voice of the younger man was level and steady as he confirmed the absurdity of what he had just heard. “Only one bowl.”

“I'm afraid so. This pottery clearly wasn't designed to last any warfare.” The nod of the silver-haired head carried too much weight considering that the object of the discussion was only a one little ceramic bowl. Then, with the air that Iruka had until then only thought to be reserved for mourning relatives, the jounin picked up yet another shattered piece of china and put it between them two. “It also seems that I need a new coffee mug now.”

“You certainly do,” Iruka agreed with a rise of an eyebrow, yet he couldn't help the tug of a smile pulling at his lips when he lifted his eyes to regard the masked man next to him. “Yet you don't seem so sorry about my tea cup, which undoubtedly lies buried somewhere there in that pile.”

“Well, you did manage to dip me in tea, if that's any consolation,” came the smoothly spoken reply with a smirk stretching the dark fabric that was covering the jounin's face. Though the instant when a tan hand took a hold of his upper arm, all amusement that had managed to bud between the two was rudely removed from Kakashi's mind as it exploded into pale blue and sizzling electricity that struck through his body that had went completely rigid on the impact. When his senses cleared again, the first thing he noted was how hard his heart was pounding inside his sternum, his pulse hitting hundreds in seconds, and how he was firmly pressing against something that seemed to have a heartbeat matching the pace of his own. It took one beat for his consciousness to crash back into his mind, two beats to peel his masked mouth away from devouring another pair of gasping lips, and three to physically force himself a good few feet away from Iruka's body that had been squeezed between the jounin and the kitchen counter. Harsh pants filled the heavy silence between the two men who tried to catch their breaths and steady both their hearts and their shaking legs.

“Sh-shit..oh fuck..sorry, Kakashi,” Iruka's voice was husky and breathless, and Kakashi mentally tried every form of lust control he could think of so as to not react to that voice while a crack of thunder echoed at the back of his mind. “I..it didn't..oh kami.”

“It's..it's alright..I guess it happens now and then,” Kakashi heard himself wheeze out as he pressed his hands against his shaking knees and held his face down, even though he wasn't so sure if he made any sense as his ears were still ringing. “..You...okay there..Iruka?”

“..Yeah..I think,” Iruka panted and took a better hold on the counter behind his back, his knuckles turning white as he willed his suddenly spiked arousal away, the dark brown eyes blinking furiously in a desperate attempt to focus on anything that could him help regain his control over his traitorous body. “...I don't know what happened there. I swear I had no intention to touch you, but it just...shit.”

“I suppose we're still not keeping enough distance,” Kakashi considered, having finally calmed his body enough to make room for his mind to gain full control. He still kept on leaning against his hands on his knees, not trusting his body to move yet. “Didn't it give any warning?”

“Nothing whatsoever,” answered the low groan that came from the younger man. A tan hand rose to cover the dark eyes that were closed in what seemed like visible agony. “My body just moved on its own accord. Why did that happen?” Then, the slanted eyes peered over the hand that was covering the flushed, scarred face. “You didn't sense anything?”

Kakashi gave a shake with his head, regretting that movement instantly when the room shifted sideways beyond his sense of balance. “No, I didn't.” The heel of a pale hand pressed at the gray eye. “This is becoming a problem.”

“Kakashi.” That single word held edge to it sharp enough to make the jounin's instincts snap wide awake and the gray eye narrowed its focus in its dark counterparts that seemed to withhold a swirl of conflicts in them. If anything, the look in the dark eyes looking at him over the hand that looked clammy with cold sweat was downright haunted. “Move. Please,” were the two barely spoken words, yet they struck the air like a whip made of more than just leather and made the jounin push his body on the move despite the discomfort in doing so.

The Sharingan user had barely stepped aside when the chuunin launched past him and took a sharp turn to the toilet. Before the first sounds of retching reached his ears, Kakashi took a deep breath and ducked his head in his hands with a silent curse leaving him, his mind already far away from his lanky figure standing dead still in the middle of the kitchen floor, it concentrating on the scene that had occurred in moments prior. What in the world had happened in those few seconds? Taking one slow step after another, the jounin followed the path the other had taken towards the small restroom, and as he reached the door that had been left wide open, the slouching jounin leaned around the corner to silently observe the heaving form of a man slumped on the floor, whose strong arms were almost hugging the toilet seat, whose dark eyes were squinted close as if the man in question was experiencing extreme pain, and whose scarred cheeks were flushed, making the sweaty face of the younger shinobi look feverish. The high ponytail was drooping, as if reflecting the state of its wearer, and in this case it might have indeed, in Kakashi's silent opinion. Quietly, though knowing that by now his presence had been detected, the ex-ANBU eased himself sitting on the floor by the door and leaned against its frame, letting his mismatched eyes rest their gaze on the opposite side of the door frame, the sharp eyes taking in the color of the wood and the sharp shadows sculpting the shape of it. He didn't need to wait for long when a sharp exhale was given by the other, by a way of starting the careful explanation.

“...This is the third time this happens.” Iruka's voice was hushed and raspy, but held itself steady. “..I was actually rather surprised that it had not happened until now.”

“What do you mean by that?” Kakashi asked calmly while looking at nothing in particular, knowing that it rarely helped the ill to be stared at. He also knew that the academy instructor didn't need to look at him in the eye to know that the man had his full attention by now.

“Every time when something like, well, that,” a shaking hand drew a floppy circle in the air by a way of describing things, “happens, I throw up after. It happened twice before, and now this.” A miserable hiccup echoed from the porcelain bowl: “..I really hate this.” Soon it was followed by a flush of the toilet and the steady flow of deep breaths taken by the dark-haired man as he rose up to wash his face and mouth over the toilet sink.

A nonsensical hum left the masked mouth at that. Kakashi had to admit, that was an interesting factor. After giving it some consideration, the gray eye narrowed. It seemed that the discussion they had not wanted to have before morning was becoming quite imperative. Perhaps it was for the best to face the hoard of unsolved riddles and uncomfortable truths now that both of them were still in more or less good health, as it had started to appear that it may very well not be the case come tomorrow should they disregard the mountain of facts staring down at them. “...I know that this isn't what either of us wants right now, but I have to ask you something. How well do you remember those last two times you mentioned?”

“...Not well.” The hesitation wasn't difficult to discern in the other's voice, nor was the tension traveling from shoulder to shoulder as the younger nin dried off his face and then lifted his eyes to face the small mirror hanging on the wall. The dark eyes looked beyond tired and slightly puffy, the dark rings under them almost swallowing them up as they peered through their reflection at the jounin slouching against the wall. “...Never got around to ask you about them.”

Well, Kakashi amended, he neither got around telling the other about them, so that made them even. Apparently it was time to put an end to that disastrous game. “...It wasn't a lie when I told that you had initiated both times.” The jounin shifted his back a bit against the frame, searching a better position to lounge, as it seemed that he'd be spending a moment in that position. “The first happened after you had collapsed. I was taking care of you, well, the best I could, considering my lacking skills as a medic, when it seemed at some point that you had woken up.” The gray eye gave a glance at the silent man who Kakashi observed to turn away from his reflection, and the jounin gave a humorless smile as he watched how the other spend a minute to find a better seating on the floor, the chuunin now leaning against the wall in a very same manner as the jounin did, except that the dark-haired head was ducked between the strong hands, the man obviously putting effort in listening to his superior over the sickness of his stomach. The sight did strengthen Kakashi's resolve to continue. “I gave you something to drink and..well.” The masked man gave a pause in thought, after which a small sigh left him. “I'm not quite sure myself of what happened there. Before I knew it, it seems that our elements took control and you were...taking the matters into your own hands. It was over so quickly that for some time I had trouble getting what had happened.”

“...I see. What exactly did I...do?” Never before had the sense of foreboding been so palpable in the chuunin's voice. It was, in some very odd sense, making Kakashi understand how it felt to be in the receiving end of a hunter-nin's blade after a very trying day for both participants.

On the other hand, as he felt the sliver of heat travel up his cheeks, Kakashi would have probably welcomed the match to death with open arms right then. “You, uh, physically persuaded me to give you a hand job.” The silence that grabbed a hold of his ear closest to the quiet chuunin was full of noise coming from what were the whirring thoughts of the other man, and by the time the rough voice spoke out, the copy-nin was sure that whatever kind of response he had been armed against, the next words weren't it.

“...In other words, you're saying that – well. Alright. Did I do anything else?”

The gray eye turned slowly to meet the dark brown ones, and at the openly questioning look he saw in the other's eyes that were peering at him under the lean arms, Kakashi was quite sure that he looked as stupid as he felt at that very minute. “...You're taking this surprisingly well.”

A tug of a feeble smile was seen on the full lips, and the dark-haired head gave a weak shake, the ponytail swinging from side to side. “...I kind of had an idea that something had happened between us once it came back to me on some level after I've woken up. To be honest, for a moment I feared it to be something far more...intimate.” Then, the look in the chuunin's eyes turned more sober and the smile vanished from his face before it had even had a chance to bloom properly. “I do apologize for forcing myself on you, conscious or not. That was inappropriate of me.”

“Maa, not quite as inappropriate as the second time, I think,” Kakashi drawled, and drew some shallow satisfaction from the creeping blush that started from the tan neck and traveled up towards the man's forehead. The pale hand rose to scratch the masked cheek, giving the jounin some moments to gather his next thoughts, because after successfully dodging the barrage of bullets, now they were entering the actual minefield in their conversations. “Although I do find myself somewhat guilty there, considering that I delivered a hit to your head before it all happened.”

“...You did what?” As calm as the teacher's voice was, the tick of a dark, slender eyebrow had been said to drive even the fiercest ANBU up the hills. They both knew, though, that Hatake was a very different breed from the ANBU they now had loitering around.

Even so, the elite jounin didn't scoff at those attempting to save themselves by all means necessary when standing face to face with severe danger. “It happened during the Twenty Cups. I don't know how it happened, but my aim went off and I accidentally gave a blow to your head with my element through the chopsticks. You went down like a sack, which, in a way, is to be expected, and for a moment I considered about summoning help, but then you started to stir and, well.” As the memories of the past night flashed in his mind, the jounin stifled a curse and gave a warning glare to his body when a course of warmth traveled across his hips. “Things got out of hands rather quickly after that. Nothing incriminating happened, I think, but that wasn't for the lack of, uh, effort.”

The dark eyes of the academy instructor kept their gaze on the silver-haired man before they were slowly turned away.“..So I didn't see your face then, after all.”

The unexpected reply was like a bucket of ice cubes dumped onto his lap, and the jounin couldn't help but turn to stare at the other man in a rather confused manner. “What...?”

Now it was Iruka's turn to rub the bridge of his scarred nose. “I..I had a vision that you, uhm, showed your face to me last night. It was a bit of a blur, though, before – uh.” At that point, the blush was back with vengeance on Iruka's face, which could have counted as a fatal error considering who exactly was sitting with him in the room that had started to feel smaller and smaller the better he understood the nature of his slip. Oh hell.

If anything, the expression forming on the masked nuisance's face was morbidly curious. “A vision of...? Before what exactly?”

Iruka had a bad feeling that if they continued down that specific path of memories, he would get sick again, as his whole body erupted into both hot and cold shivers at once when his mind opened up that particular can of worms squirming in the dark recesses of his subconsciousness. “Never mind. A drunken dream.” Though the way the gray eye gave him a hard and a long stare, Iruka cursed his too quick tongue, his too quick temper and his too quickly settling stomach that, of course, failed him now when he needed a distraction the most, no matter how unpleasant it was for him.

Catching the look of growing apprehension in the dark eyes that decided then to look at anything else but him, Kakashi turned his upper body to lean further into the personal bubble of his elusive target. “You know that this house isn't so big that I couldn't easily track you down to pester you later should you try to escape this question now.”

Oh, how Iruka hated with passion that reasonable tone the bastard every now and then decided to give him, as if he was talking to a five-year-old who spoke like he knew better than him how the world worked – and taken into consideration what kind of child genius the unnerving man had undoubtedly been, he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that in fact he did, the little shit. Why on earth did he keep on going to the shrines to ask for what was appearing to be rather shitty luck in his miserable life, Iruka could only guess. A hard look was given to the jounin by the chuunin as he went through his options. “You're not letting this one go, are you.”

The look in the gray eye was unrelenting, like the gaze of a hound that had caught the scent of a bone and wasn't about to brush off the thrill of the hunt at any cost. “Considering that I just willingly admitted to have stuck my hand into your pants a couple of nights prior and risked my very neck by doing so, then you could say that no, I'm not.”

The man did have a point, albeit a very uncomfortable one. Drawing a steadying breath that failed miserably in settling his surfacing nerves, Iruka turned his eyes away from the older man and focused them to glare at the toilet seat in turn. “I...dreamed that we...how should I put it. We had a rather, ah, steamy session on the terrace.” A tan hand rose to smooth over the dark hair before finding solace by the base of the droopy ponytail, and the dark, slanted eyes kept on looking anywhere but the jounin sitting by the door a few feet away. “You topped. In case you were wondering.”

Well. That explained a few things in Kakashi's mind that had suddenly screeched to a shocked halt due to the heard revelation. On the other hand, it raised a whole storm of questions as well. “...Maa. I suppose you managed to find out on your own this morning that that didn't happen.” Despite the effort put on coolness, there was the faint trace of a question in his voice.

Iruka gave a small nod at that, yet he couldn't deny the wave of relief soothing his being when he actually heard the other confirm his earlier observations. As big as the mess was that they had managed to make for themselves, at least his mission partner didn't treat him like the inept idiot that he currently certainly viewed himself to be. “I did. I also had a suspicion that I missed a few crucial parts here and there, once I had time to think about it.” Then the ANBU and all this happened, was left unsaid, but not unheard.

As it was, they both fell silent, letting the time tick by as both nins centered their minds on the problems, answers and more importantly the many questions that had followed after Iruka's pinch in the bathroom, it all boiling down to the past couple of hours when the wildly warping vortex of their games had both reached and then spectacularly stumbled over its event horizon. The chuunin rubbed over his scarred face, as the jounin's shoulders rolled against the wooden surface they were leaning against, the shuffling of clothes and huffs of breaths filling in the role that the spoken words couldn't. Neither of them dared to consider what would happen when the wall of elephants would eventually get torn down, but there was one thing they could silently agree on: it was going to be a long night for them both.

“...I could check if there were any cups for us. I can make you some tea,” Kakashi found himself tentatively offering, and gave his masked nose a passing rub, as if chasing after a sudden itch. “Though I'm not sure how wise it is for you to drink anything made by me considering how things are right now...I suppose,” came the following mumble, and the pale hand ruffled through the silver mane in a manner that belied of the jounin feeling just a little bit self-conscious under the look he was given by the other man.

After a beat, the dark eyes seemed to catch onto something warmer than the cold sense of reality they had been forced to face during the previous minutes. “...If I made you coffee, then theoretically we'd both be facing the same problem.” The rise of the dark eyebrow spoke of amusement that had become a rare occurrence between the men. “Care to put that theory to test?”

The masked mouth smirked with a warmer undertone than it had in a long time. “For getting coffee made by you? Always.”

They stood silent in the kitchen, both the tan and the pale arms crossed over clothed chests, their looks assessing and their expressions matching the surreal seriousness of their situation. Before them, on the cleared counter, stood two steaming cups, one with stripes of the pale sage, it displaying the darkest reds and browns of a patiently brewed pu'erh, and a monochromatic graphite gray one that emitted the lingering aroma of a strong, dark roast that swirled into the air of the kitchen; them both enticing in their promise to the one smelling them, beckoning to lean closer for a good whiff and a taste. When that was taken into consideration, the amount of respective caution that rolled off the men in waves was perhaps rather silly, but no-one except them was there to comment on it. Slowly, a tan hand hovered over the small cup, the long, calloused fingers tapping the rim before sliding down the side and circling back up, the owner of the said fingers sensing the intense look he was given by the man standing beside him.

“Detecting anything there?” Asked the lazy yet interested drawl to Iruka's right.

A shake of the ponytailed head was the answer to that. “Nothing but the scent, but that's only expected. No tingle, no buzz. Just tea growing cold in a cup.” The dark, narrow eyes shifted to look at the other small cup curiously. “How about you?”

Like it were a test in the jounin exams, the pale man gingerly took the cup in his hand, then held it in both hands and took a deep breath, which would have otherwise made the scene look like something taken straight from the booklets promoting their meditation exercises, except for the narrow gray eye that was looking anything but relaxed. “Nope. Just smelling coffee.”

Well, then. “Should we..give it a go?” The dark brown eyes sought out their counterpart that answered their look over the dark mask. The silence counted the seconds they took before two sets of shoulders shrugged, the two cups were lifted as a brief toast and then taken to the respective lips, and the nightly air gave some privacy to the men testing their drinks.

A hush of silence, then, “Anything?”

“No, nothing. You?”

“Nothing, except enjoying the taste,” Kakashi drawled and took yet another sip, this time with less anticipation for worse or better outcome. “Would have been a waste to miss out on this for the rest of the mission.”

Iruka couldn't help but let out a pleased chuckle at the quite direct compliment. “I can agree with you there.” His hands held the cup in both palms, and the chuunin was glad to note that the warmth of the china was slowly seeping into his tense muscles. However, that also meant that the events of the day were finally catching up with his diminishing energy levels, and soon enough he raised a hand to cover a yawn stretching his jaws.

“It's quite late, isn't it,” Kakashi commented idly over his cup to no-one in particular while he casually calculated that the small dose of caffeine in his cup was very unlikely to prevent him from nodding off like a light once he hit the bed.

Iruka gave a small nod at the jounin's words and tipped over his cup. “I think it's time to go to bed,” he agreed on his behalf and put the cup down on the counter before glancing at the jounin next to him.

While keeping his focus on the taste of the rich flavours on his tongue rather than the attention he was being given by the other, the ex-ANBU savored the last sip of his coffee before rinsing the used cup shortly and placing it on the counter as well. Yet nobody could say that Kakashi had become the elite for just being in a right place at the wrong time. “I think I'm hearing a 'but' coming along those lines.”

Having worked with the man as long as he had, Iruka wasn't really surprised to see that coming. However, that didn't help to keep himself from rubbing his nose, thus signaling the other how well he had been caught. Not that the reluctance to look the other in the eye wasn't already a dead giveaway. “Well, uh, I was thinking that perhaps it would be the best if we didn't share the bedroom tonight.” The dark eyes, almost black in the dim light, turned to assess the reaction of the gray eye that was patiently observing them back. “I'll move my futon into the training room, if that's alright with you.”

Even being the genius that he was claimed to be, Kakashi didn't find any reason to object the proposition. The young nin had a rather good point there, actually, for they could both sleep for what was left of the long night in relative peace of mind without fearing for anything happening between their unconscious bodies. They were hip-deep in the mess already, so it was only natural that their deeply ingrained senses of survival were constantly searching for ways to make things less unhealthy for them. “I can help you carry it.” The quirk of a grateful smile on the full lips was unnecessary, really, but he appreciated the sentiment it carried.

Together they went to the bedroom, both noticing how the sight of the rumpled sheets, messily discarded clothes and twisted duvets made the air tense between them for the barest of seconds before it vanished when they set their minds only on taking the teacher's belongings through the doors to the bigger room; setting the pillow over the folded duvet before taking a hold on the heavy futon, one pair of hands on each end, and carrying it carefully over the scattered pile of travel-sized books, a discarded black notebook, opened standard-issue mission bags, dirty sheets and the common paraphernalia of two single shinobis sharing a household for a short time period. Once in the training room, both pairs of eyes looked around for a comfortable spot before silently agreeing over a place quite near the bedroom doors, their trained instincts making them aware that as the things were, keeping the other relatively in sight was the best course of action for them at the time being.

The linen were smoothed out once the bed was put down, followed by the pillow and the blanket, the jounin discreetly leaving the chuunin fuss over his bed as he went to perform his evening routines. After a short moment, the awaiting chuunin took his turn in the vacant restroom, giving the jounin privacy for changing into his sleeping gear before spending an awkward moment by standing over his bed that had taken the brunt of the sudden turn of events. If one could say even that. A huff left the hidden lips and a hand rose to rub the pale-skinned temple; it was getting really late if Kakashi was starting to debate with himself over the right phrasing of things.

“Is everything alright, Kakashi?” The softly spoken question made the mismatched eyes snap their attention back to present, and the silver-haired head turned towards the spoken man who stood by the bedroom door; his dark clothes changed and the tan face washed, the dark hair at last let down from the high ponytail. For all the copy-nin could see, the chuunin appeared seemingly ready to hit the bed that was currently located on the other side of the masked elite.

Despite the sight of the other male making him rather conscious about the fact that now was not the time to point out how the shadows falling over the tan face were doing justice to the man's high cheekbones, Kakashi gave a small, reassuring nod; to whom in particular, he couldn't say. “Yeah. Just tired.” As it was, the gray eye followed the younger man as the chuunin strolled around him, keeping at a safe distance, and made his way to the training room's doorway, the dark hair swaying over the broad shoulders as he walked. That itself wasn't the reason why the ex-ANBU opened his mouth, but the uneasy feeling that traveled up his spine, it telling him that the threshold over which the other man was stepping may become a barrier of something more complex in its nature if he let the other pass it without notice. “...Are you alright?”

The chuunin paused in mid-step, the lean legs shifting their weight as the tan body stopped its going and the dark-haired head turned to let the narrow eyes cast a look over one broad shoulder. At first, the sharply looking eyes seemed like they were searching for something that the jounin didn't want to contemplate at that moment, but after a blink, a small, disarming smile splayed on the full lips. “I think so.” Without further affirmations coming, the man turned away and was swallowed by the darkness of the other room, leaving the jounin stand alone in the dim light that cast his long shadow up at the walls around him. “Have a good night, Kakashi,” was said by the smooth baritone.

The smile on the hidden lips was genuine, yet the cause of it made him swallow. “You as well, Iruka.”

As the village of Konohagakure drifted into sleep like many other hidden villages before it had in the times of tentative peace, so did the small, unassuming, light-gray house fall silent, the barriers around it humming in the background as the blue-tinted darkness slithered over and around the silent corners and the corridor, reclaiming its territory from the already retreated light of the day, it paying no heed to the two men, a chuunin and a jounin of their respective ranks, who laid in their beds, their eyes wide open but unseeing, nothing but the sounds of their steady breaths being heard by the wall of silent elephants that were standing guard around them.

Chapter Text

All was silent when a new dawn crept over Konohagakure.

Speckles of dust twirled in the cold rays of light while the urban districts stayed quiet and still, void of life that just a few hours prior had been present, with only a few early birds disrupting the slumbering peace with their shrill caws.

As it skipped over the roofs and the streets, the brisk morning light brushed against the quietly humming barriers that surrounded a small, light-gray house situated in a nondescript block. Quietly, the light crawled over the high fence, dashed over the backyard and gave a flicking pause at the faint stains that spotted some parts of the wooden terrace. It then searched for an entrance, peeking through every crack, nook and gap to reach the inhabitants of the household, its increasing brightness filtering through windows and chasing the cobwebs of the lingering night away.

It was the brightness of the light that made narrow, mismatched eyes to open with a drowsy blink, the dark rings under them belying of a restless night. A deep breath followed the opening of the eyes that were now focusing their look at the ceiling above the awakening man before the famous Sharingan was hidden from the world yet again. A pale hand emerged from beneath the duvet to give a sleepy rub over the masked face and the silvery mane when Hatake Kakashi, the famed genius to his name, let his body wake up after a sleepless night.

As the things were, no matter how lazy the others accused him of being, it could be said that at that moment the drowsy elite honestly didn't feel at all inclined to get out of his bed and face the new day.

Namely, to face it meant that he would also have to face the matters that awaited him.

Kakashi let his hand fall onto his chest and let his gray eye remain open to observe the wooden ceiling above his sleepy figure while his sharp ears listened to the sounds around him, there being one sound in particular that he was after. When the steady snuffling coming from an other room reached his ears, the infamous jounin dared to roll onto his front and prop himself up on his elbows while he peered at the sight that greeted him between the open doors that led to the training room.

His dark brown tresses were tangled all over the pillow and his dark eyes were closed as Iruka slept on his futon inside their training room, the chuunin's lightly clothed chest rising and falling in the rhythm of his quiet breaths. The tan man laid on his back, his lithe frame sprawled over the bedding with one arm thrown over his head, and yet despite the current appearances it looked to Kakashi that he may not have been the only one who had troubles catching sleep. As it was, there were lines of tension visible on the scarred face, with the full-lipped mouth drawn into a slight frown and the dark eyebrows lightly furrowed, the positions of hands and legs undoubtedly a result of some turning and tossing.

Apparently the jounin hadn't been the only one wondering what the morning may bring along.

With that thought in mind, the silver-haired man slowly eased himself up on his bed. Carefully, the lean legs stretched out from underneath the comforter and the lanky man straightened up, only a couple of snaps and cracks of a seasoned soldier's body following his silent steps as he tip-toed to the door that opened to the corridor and then let the breaking daylight nip at his heels as he entered the hallway. On his way, the ex-ANBU popped briefly into the small toilet to perform the everyday routines of the human body before ambling to the open kitchen, more precisely towards the two mundane kitchen appliants that were waiting for him on the kitchen counter. As per the established routine, the tanks were filled, the cups were measured, and after a few moments of general puttering, the sounds of softly clattering china as well the bubbling of warming water pushed the last of the loitering night away.

After the start he had given for the day, the jounin gave a passing look at his scant sleepwear and then backtracked back to the bedroom to pull on the sweats – only to stop on the threshold of the bedroom as he was greeted with a sight of one awakened chuunin rising up on elbows and looking at him blearily.

Given a moment of observation, Kakashi decided not to comment on the odd angles that the dark-skinned man's hair had somehow tousled itself into, or the dark rings under the man's eyes, but went with the more diplomatic approach: “Good morning.”

By a way of answering, the sleepy chuunin squinted at the boxer-clad jounin who stood by the door while the dark eyebrows drew down in question before the man spoke: “Morning. What time is it?” The warm baritone was rough from the edges, and a dry cough followed the speech while the slanted eyes turned to look at the bright light that was filtering into the training room and over the restlessly slept tan nin, it highlighting his high cheeks and the strong tendons of his throat.

“Half past six,” Kakashi replied, the jounin letting his gaze linger on the other man a bit more before he took the needed steps to reach for his sweats and thus to get his thoughts back from the gutter. “I'm making some breakfast,” he said, half of him wondering about his sudden chatty mood while he pulled on the pants, “I could make you some tea.” As soon as his mouth had said that, he gave a passing glance to the man still lounging on the futon — in order to see what exactly, he didn't know.

What the ex-ANBU did know, however, was that the indecisive flicker between either declining or accepting the offer that passed over the other's scarred face wasn't quite what he had been after.

On the other hand, the chuunin didn't manage to hide the following tinge of red that spread on his cheeks, no matter how much the man rubbed his scarred nose: “Um. Darjeeling would be nice. Once you're at it.”

Despite the lack of sleep making him feel more out of place than what he undoubtedly would have felt in any case, there was no helping the warm grin stretching the fabric of the jounin's mask; for what reason, he wasn't about to analyze before his first dose of caffeine. “Alright. Join me when you're ready.” With that said, the silver-haired man turned to head back into the kitchen. The half of him that wondered what was his game with prancing around half-naked and showing off his legs to the man who he had left staring after his exit was promptly put on hold.

He had some darjeeling to hunt.

Luckily they still had some dishes left from which he could serve the breakfast, albeit eating lunch and dinner from the small snack-sized bowls and plates may turn out to be an interesting experiment. They should also have a closer look at the leftovers that Teuchi-san's visit had left them with — he was sure one of the boxes wibbled a bit when he looked at it.

With such thoughts circling in his mind, it was somewhere between slicing up a pear and arranging the cut chunks of a peach on a small plate when Kakashi came to sense the other male approaching him. “It won't take long,” he called over his shoulder, knowing that the other was fully aware of him picking up their presence, “the drinks are already outside.” He didn't need to see either the thankful nod or the chuunin stepping outside to feel a small measure of ease drop in between them two.

On the other hand, as the sliced pear accompanied the peach chunks on the tray he then picked up, the elite spy also knew that they both knew better.

One step at a time, he let himself walk out of the kitchen door and onto the terrace, his mismatched eyes squinting against the bright morning light before the gray eye sought out the sight of the dark-haired man who already sat on the wooden floorboards, a steaming cup of tea held in his tan hands. The teacher looked at the scenery in thought before he turned to glance at the jounin who stopped some steps away from him.

“It tastes good. Thank you,” Iruka said with a small smile on his face, and the jounin took it in good graces despite the small lines of strain he saw marking the corners of the full-lipped mouth.

“Maa, considering how many times you've made me coffee I thought it's only proper to return the favor once in a while,” Kakashi heard himself drawl aimlessly while he eased down on the porch and set the tray of foods between them two before taking his coffee.

As it was, a dry snort was his answer. “Knowing how late you always are with your 'whiles' it's best to savor this moment, then,” the chuunin mocked back, his joking words light as the breeze that twirled around his ponytail. Yet the look in the slanted eyes wasn't on the same track with them, the trained assassin noted, once the man turned back to sip his drink.

While the morning brightened around their beloved village, they sat in silence, both nins sipping their drinks and chewing on the light breakfast. If they noticed how they sat a bit further away from each other, how both carefully avoided touching the other's hand while taking the fruits from the plate or how they gave brief glances to one another whenever they thought that the other didn't see it, neither was willing to comment on it.

However, neither of them anticipated the startled expressions they saw on each other's faces when their eyes met over the last piece of fruit.

“...I'll go get some more tea,” Iruka offered after a beat of stunned silence, the quick smile on his face riddled with surfacing nerves, and the teacher mentally cursed the blush he felt rushing to his cheeks as he stood up. Then, for some odd suicidal reason, as he had walked past the older man he turned around and gave a vague gesture at the other's empty coffee cup. “..Uh. Would you like a refill?”

The surprised look that he caught in the other's gray eye carried something that made him lose himself briefly into his thoughts, which didn't make it easier to control the embarrassing twitch his body gave as the jounin offered the cup to him.

“Maa, if that's no trouble,” Kakashi murmured as he accepted the unexpected offer, yet the awkward, guarded alertness that took over both the chuunin's body and the man's expressive face made him wonder for a second until it hit him.

Ah.

Slowly, he set the cup down on the floor while estimating the safe distance between himself, the cup and the other man who then quietly took the cup and walked briskly to the kitchen, leaving the silent elite alone on the porch.

For a moment, he let his eye follow the path the younger nin had taken, and when he turned back to observe the glimpse of their awakening village over the fence, Kakashi gave a frown at the remnants of their breakfast.

The fruit bit was left untouched.

A yawn broke out despite his efforts and Iruka let a hushed curse drop from his lips. He hadn't dared to look at himself in the toilet mirror that morning, knowing that he undoubtedly still felt worse than what he looked like. Albeit seeing how awkward the morning between him and the other man was turning out to be, it wasn't giving him much of a comfort.

The non-subtle clinks of the tableware were hopefully enough to cover the put-out sigh that left him, although he didn't give himself much hope on that.

Luckily neither of the cups in his hands were a kunai considering that by the time he headed back to the terrace he felt like stabbing himself just a little, the warmth seeping through the porcelain doing nothing to ground him in the situation. However, once he stopped by the door and gave a proper look at the lone man sitting on the terrace, there was something that made his inner rant stop at the sight of the older shinobi's familiar slump and the bored look on the masked face.

“You didn't sleep at all last night, did you,” he suddenly stated aloud, sounding oddly collected to his own ears. Yet he barely kept himself from taking an instinctive step back when the jounin straightened his posture for one vertebra.

Although he did give a blink at the words that left the older male: “Maa, hearing how talkative you are this morning makes me assume the same.”

It spoke of their situation quite clearly for it to be only then that Iruka noticed the hidden stress coursing through the masked nin's seated body.

As it was, when it came to an offered truce, no matter how backhanded it may be, Iruka was aware that he hardly had the luxury to decline. “It was rather terrible, I admit,” he amended, his voice a pinch warmer than the chill of the dawning day. “I guess there's only hoping that we've both slept enough to prevent anything odd from occurring before Tsunade-sama gets here,” he dryly chatted to distract the odd sensations he felt crawling under his skin the moment when he plopped down on the wooden porch, carefully balancing the cups he held as he settled down back to his spot next to the silver-haired man.

Without a word, the coffee cup was placed between them on a tray, from which it was taken by the pale hands. “Well, considering that possibility with the current situation it is something better to avoid,” Kakashi drawled lazily, his focus held on the steaming drink until he directed a sidelong look at the tan man. “Since I'm not in the mood for any outbreaks today.”

The tea cup stayed still in his hands, yet his insides roared like a tide hitting the pier at what was said. “Then that makes two of us,” Iruka countered, his voice hardening considerately before he caught himself, not for the first time berating himself for his too quickly flaring temper when the echo of his words tasted foul on his suddenly dry tongue.

The caws of the birds were heard over their heads as there was once more nothing said between them, the chuunin frowning at his tea and the jounin nursing his dark roast with restless fingers.

Halfway through the heavily quiet mood, the tan hands gripped tighter the frail cup they held, the knuckles almost turning white when a decision was made in the dark-haired teacher's mind. “..You know,” the voice of the academy instructor began once more, this time more composed than what it had been only a moment ago, “when my students find themselves in a situation where they cannot address the problem directly, I always tell them to work around the dilemma as long as it takes until they find the key to solve the issue straight on. The method to do so is chosen freely, and it can even be modified or replaced with others, but the goal should always be kept clearly in sight.” A fond chuckle, at odds with the serious tone the man had expressed earlier, warmed the air around them despite the fact that Iruka kept his back to the other. “They always complain that it is easier said than done.”

A quiet, nonsensical hum left the older male at those words, but there was no trace of dismissal heard in it. On the contrary, Kakashi would have lied if he said he wasn't relieved to see that the chuunin was still willing to seek common ground with him, despite the tension he felt snapping in the air between them. “Maa. In the field, I always tell the teams to concentrate more on the actual reasons and mechanics that lie underneath the mission goals and strategies rather than just pushing their way blindly through. That way they are more likely aware of the consequences that their acts will cause.” His voice tattled of a warm smile forming beneath the dark mask. “Maybe that's why some of the teams I've had accuse me of leaving most of the thinking to them and complain that I'm just tagging along for the thrills.”

Instead of focusing on the shivers of undefined tension that slithered up his spine at the change of tone he could hear in the jounin's voice, Iruka laughed briefly at the older man's words. “That sounds awfully like what Naruto would say,” he said once the sudden streak of humor had died, yet there was no helping the grin that stayed on his face for a beat longer than it had in the past couple of days. However, after they had settled with a more amiable silence lingering around them, his next words carried sentiments that were the reason for his thinning smile. “But they will learn. Thinking up a solution for a stressful problem is never an easy process.”

“...No, it isn't,” the jounin agreed, his low voice quiet and pensive, while his thoughts picked up the pace with his adrenaline levels, his ears ringing with the quietness that dropped by once again, the passing smile on the masked lips transforming into a small frown. Paying no attention to the cautious look he was given over the other's shoulder, the acclaimed genius of his hidden village let out a silent sigh before squinting at the bright morning light that shone over them. “Though usually, in the end, the correct solutions are painfully easy.”

Iruka let out a commenting hum, his dark eyes distant for a minute before he turned around to face the pondering jounin. “I've spent many years thinking about that. Sometimes, I came to the conclusion that the pain is optional.”

There wasn't much the ex-ANBU could say to that, given his personal career path, but he understood the point. “Then I assume that you consider such as the better options,” Kakashi noted and gave a look at his mission partner.

His fingers had become restless, tapping against his crossed arms, but Iruka kept the rest of his body in control. Alas, that didn't mean that his mouth was in agreement with his physique. “That is a dangerous thing to say. You of all people should understand that.”

When neither of them were apparently coming up with anything else to add, the silence settled on their shoulders once again and they turned looking away from each other, both men keenly aware of the weight of the unspoken that pressed down on their necks.

...Or rather one elephant in particular that they both sensed sitting down snugly between them.

“...Alright. I'll go first, then,” Iruka said while trying to ignore the knot of dread tightening inside his gut as he began: “It seems to me that, given our primary goals for this mission, it is futile for us to continue until we regain the control of our bodies to the level where we can be of use to Tsunade-sama's research. As the previous days clearly show, we cannot touch or even be near each other without stumbling over difficulties.” The huff of a quiet breath he heard from the other man, on the other hand, softened the line of his shoulders enough to make the frown of discomfort ease from his brow as the chuunin glanced at his masked mission partner.

“I suppose that is one way to put it,” Kakashi agreed, with unexpected humor to his words as the older male answered the gaze with his gray eye — yet despite the lightness of the response, there was a reserved glint visible, which was expected.

“However,” the chuunin let himself go on after gathering his shortly scattered thoughts, “Tsunade-sama has, on a couple of occasions, changed the missives to suit better the current situation, which now concerns more about the developments happening in our elements and thus in our physical bodies rather than how many bruises and muscle strains she can count on us. In that case, the mission is still running.”

After reaching the silent count to twenty birds flying over their heads, Kakashi's took it as his cue to reel their team back on track before the rest of the elephants were given time to start stomping on their backs. It wasn't as unnerving as he had thought, to hear the other say aloud what he had swirled and analyzed in his mind for most of the past night. Yet the jounin found himself disagreeing with what he could hear between the lines. “I don't think aborting the mission is the solution.”

“Then what would you suggest?” The flash of the fiery temper in the dark eyes had been absent for so long that it took the jounin a second to register it when the academy instructor directed his glare at the older nin. “Didn't you pay any attention to what we were told yesterday? Things may become irreversible unless we find a way to reign the impulses and regain the control over the situation. If we're unable to—”

“Enough.” That one word, so calmly spoken yet with such a strong ring of authority, made the argument stop on its tracks before it had gained enough momentum, and while he observed how the younger shinobi visibly restrained his sharp tongue, the man's nostrils flaring before letting a deep breath flow in and out a couple of times, Kakashi let his thoughts take form: “You're getting too far ahead of the situation. I agree that we can't operate the same way we have until now, and as an active field agent I do get the frustration it causes considering that technically we're only halfway through with this, but getting carried away with speculations and what ifs rarely plays for anyone's benefit when it comes to completing a mission. You surely know that.” He may have sounded harsher than he intended, but the look crossing the other's face wasn't one of upset nor embarrassment, much to his pleased notice. Yet what he did see passing in the dark brown eyes made him break eye contact with the tan man at the same time when the chuunin turned to stare at the tea still held in his hands.

For all the noise that came behind the fence, both men heard nothing except their own thoughts.

Then, the tan hands set down the frail cup before smoothing their way over the tied hair, from forehead to the base of the ponytail, before backtracking their way over the high cheeks and scarred nose in order to prop the strong jaw resting on their knuckles when the man leaned on his elbows against his knees. “There are many factors to process. More than any of us anticipated.”

There were, Kakashi agreed. He had come to terms with that last night. With that taken into consideration, perhaps it was time to take things to a next level. “Let's try to re-route a bit. As it is, we have two main types of factors that we have to take into account at the moment: the physiological ones, and then the psychological ones. It also appears that one of those factor types is currently dominating over the other, which makes it imperative for us to react to that. Undoubtedly you have also noticed that I'm not pleased with the course that things have taken, either.” The mild glare from the teacher was impressive on its own, and had he not found himself prancing on a proverbial trigger, the jounin would have commended the man for effectively reflecting the said with his face. Thus, he could not help but add the final dot in place. “I'm well aware of the responsibilities I have failed to meet as the team leader, but I'm not ignorant towards your contributions to this mess either.”

On those words, Iruka groaned and buried his head into his hands, his high ponytail swishing in tempo with the shake of his head while the instructor fervently hoped that the heat on his cheeks hadn't reached his ears.

“Makes one appreciate the insanity of S ranks doesn't it,” Kakashi quipped dryly to no one in particular while feeling relieved that his mask hid most of his lightly reddening face, and smiled at the light chortle that came from the younger shinobi before he forced his tapping leg to still and gave a sidelong glance at the man in question.

“You have a thing for twisting up every mission, don't you,” stated the chuunin as he dropped his hands from his face, his expression impassive and challenging despite the lingering red on his face, yet there was once more the odd undercurrent that surfaced beneath the words that the jounin took notice in.

“As well you seem to have a kink for littering your trail with riddles,” the jounin heard himself answer, casual yet all teeth, taking meek amusement from the sight of the rising hackles on the other.

Unexpected to many who knew them, neither were keen to provoke further the friction that shortly frizzled between them, both letting the brewing argument dissolve — until the infamous man of many cursed fates counted his blessings and spoke once more, hoping that the manner of his speech conveyed what his past lives made difficult to verbalize. “...Of course, enduring each other's company for the time being would be a different matter to discuss—”

However, he had no time to elaborate when the academy instructor stood up and stepped down to the yard, the sudden change in the man's demeanor tattling of a furious internal debate as he paced a few steps back and forth before rounding back to look at the older nin with an unimpressed glare, the strong hands put firmly on the narrow hips. Considering their common history, Kakashi was loathe to admit he knew the meaning of that particular stance all too well by now, and the part of him that had been acquainted with the consequences of such posture swallowed a bag of caltrops when the teacher opened his mouth.

“Hatake, if you're seriously suggesting to integrate casual mission sex into our daily interaction with unchecked and severely unpredictable factors that we are currently facing on this mission you're more unhinged than I thought.” The words cut like a sharp blade, smooth and cool – yet the look the chuunin had in his eyes was heated enough to light up a furnace.

For a few beats, the accused man in question said nothing as he sat and watched the other glaring back at him, as if he had not heard him at all. When Kakashi started to speak, however, the low voice was cool as a blizzard: “I wonder what that says about you, since there's always some madness put into the methods for those who work with jounins, sensei. Furthermore,” he drawled as he stood up on the porch to take the first step to the yard, not missing how the teacher took subtle steps back on each step he advanced, “I didn't say that I considered that as an option. You formed that idea all by yourself.”

He knew the younger man was smart enough to see what he was pulling, but that was not such a big concern when he was far more interested to see if the fire in the other's dark eyes could turn any hotter.

Given the teacher's infamous temper, the ex-ANBU wasn't disappointed: the fire became absolutely vivid. At the slow, considering tilt of the jounin's head, a menacing frown formed on the chuunin's forehead while the edge in his gaze turned hard as steel when he continued: “Is that what this ultimately is, stripping me down to gain the upper hand?”

The rise of a silvery eyebrow was a far cry from being serious. “You wish to feed scenes into all of my dirty little fantasies, Umino?”

Iruka could feel his ponytail bristle one hair at a time due to the way the other man's words made his insides recoil, the dark strands standing up in attention with his rising fighting spirit. Before he even knew it, he was already speaking. “This is why I want to drop out. You're asking me to lower my guard yet at the same time the way you approach this situation is making it impossible to separate subterfuge from honest intentions. Should we continue like this—I am a shinobi: I endure. I get that, I even teach that. Therefore on a mission there should not be a situation where I am unwilling to endure because I am a shinobi.” As he spoke, something was bleeding into his voice, yet Iruka refused to discern what it was, as the only sound he wanted to concentrate on was the beating of his own pulse. “With that in mind, I'm failing to see how continuing the mission would stop this mess from spiraling out of control more than it has.” Seeing the look on the older nin's masked face, it seemed that the elite was finally catching onto the same page with him. With that, he couldn't help but keep his gaze on the man with whom he had shared so many strange moments up until then, a small sigh of exhaustion escaping through the cracks of his mental barrier. “...I'm afraid we're reaching an impasse.”

The silence fell and held between them, both men watching one another intently over the ground that felt cool against their bare feet, the morning dew still clinging to the soil while the morning sun followed its path over the village of Konoha, home to many shinobis like them: weapons with whimsical spirits and fragile bodies of flesh, beings who were both masters and victims of their trade.

Kakashi let the silence be, let his gray eye take in the horizontal scar that cut across the other's high cheeks, the stance of the strong body, the slope of the bare neck and the planes of the sculpted chest; the characteristics of a man who now waited for the consequences of what had been let out in the open.

“..It's hard to let go of bad habits at this age,” Kakashi mused, his voice calm and low, and let a weak smile play on his masked lips at the barely concealed shock he saw in the younger man's eyes. Then the jounin took a couple of steps away from the other nin, if only to give them both some space to calm down. The gray eye gave a brief look to the world outside the fence, as if the pale man needed a moment to find the right words. “Last night, when we talked, it became clear that neither of us had anticipated the way how things have progressed between us. Like you, I'm not amused with this mess either, and wish to set things on the right track.”

A frustrated groan left Iruka's mouth before the elite could carry on. “It's not the question of what, it's how, which is something we should have thought about already a week ago.”

However lost on the road of life he occasionally ended being, the ex-ANBU did not miss the tension that had taken over the chuunin's body, the sight of the dark brown eyes narrowing, or the sound of the man swallowing, when he gave a proper look at the other. He gave himself a moment, briefly paying attention to the possibility of having his next words blow up to their faces. They were both fools apparently. “Then let me rephrase: how is it possible that you can fluently transcribe a completely butchered mission report and thus salvage it into something intelligent enough to be worthy of filing and yet fail to get the semantics when I am not asking you to merely endure but to work through this mess with me instead of treating me like an enemy?”

Had they been anywhere else than on that very mission having that very conversation, the look that crossed the pedantic bureaucrat's scarred face after his words were received would have made a fine memory for Kakashi to cherish for years. A part of him that wasn't suddenly gearing up both with his hormones and self-preserving instincts at the sight of the dark brown eyes staring back at him on a blushing tan face made a mental note to hold onto that thought.

After regaining the control of his eyebrows, Iruka pulled them back down from his hairline while the gears in his head were given a prompt kickstart. “...Well,” he mused when he looked at the older man, and while he waited for his mind to whir back into motion to properly start analyzing what he had heard, Iruka registered that his palms were sweaty, and that there was a pull he could not control taking over the corners of his mouth. “At least Konoha thanks us for the fact that I can't punch you right now.”

There is, some claim, a particular sound that one can hear when a string that is wound up too tight snaps inside a void.

A sudden bark of laughter burst from beneath the dark mask as the silver-haired jounin, the most feared finely bred weapon of Konohagakure, reacted to the unexpected snipe, followed soon by loudly ringing chuckles of Konoha's second most feared instructor. As they laughed, their voices warm and bright like the light that shone upon them, the two men paid no attention to the elephants that were shuffling restlessly around them, their jaws hurting and eyes watering when the mental exhaustion resulting from the badly slept nights and bizarre days pushed itself out of their bodies.

Yet such was the nature of fatigue that it didn't take long for them to fall silent again, with only a couple of coughs lightening the tangibly embarrassed hush that pinched their cheeks on its way out.

When the moment had passed, Iruka turned his eyes away from the jounin who gave a light frown at the serious look that took place on his face. “But to tell the truth, considering the practicality of the options you've used so far it isn't exactly encouraging me to embrace your bright ideas,” the teacher cut the mood with more venom than he may have intended, but he knew that now when they were actually pushing the issue he would be sure to push equally hard. “You're the last person I need to needle me about my behavior.”

Kakashi didn't add anything to that, seeing that the instructor already knew what he his reply would be. Instead, he let his eyes look at the sky above them, settling his posture in a more relaxed manner while mulling the next topic on his clever tongue. “The cause and the effect are not as directly connected as they seem.” Not surprisingly, the teacher huffed. Kakashi was briefly tempted to do the same, yet he kept his gaze on the clouds; somehow, gazing at them made it easier to state the facts that had been waiting to tumble out: “Yesterday it became clear that these things happen on an impulse, something that triggers an action either in one or both of us. It also became clear that whatever it is that is controlled by the impulses has developed further in my body which is feeding off its reactions into yours to some extent.” The jounin gave a mental groan at the words he remembered Tsunade using on him before going forward: “Yet it also seems that your triggers are autonomous on some level, which now has brought us to a rather peculiar point on this mission.”

“You mean we actually don't know which one of us worked as the key trigger for this mess,” Iruka filled in, his frown mirroring the determined concentration every shinobi had when working on a baffling problem. “There's no consistency between the causes and the effects, at least not any obvious pattern to follow except for the growing frequency and the drive for a physical connection to trigger a reaction.”

The facts that the last night provided them were left unsaid but not ignored.

“It's also possibly connected to our levels of self-control and chakra power balance,” Kakashi listed, absently counting the reasons and results that spiraled into a web of loose facts and dead-ends inside his mind. They could not track back their steps to get to the initial turning point when things had started to get strange since they had not paid attention to them during the mission, which didn't make it easy to discern how they had ended up to the point they now were. He felt like cursing their lack of thought, but the idea he had entertained for a while let him stay on track. “If we stop feeding it.”

“Now is not the time to stick your smart mouth to places where others have a hard time to follow.” The reply was swift as well as sharp from Iruka's side and he gave glare at the other man.

The slow, pointed look that Kakashi gave to the chuunin seemed to make the younger man understand the nature of his slip, with all things considered, if the deep red hue taking over the man's ears was anything to go by.

“Referring to that,” the elite let himself carry on while struggling to keep the surfacing mental images at bay, “we both know this has gone out of hands because we've been incoherent with our responses and have acted both according to our professional training and personal quirks in places that may have needed a different kind of approach. As you said before, the less we're able to address the real issues, the worse they get, and the best way to end up with that outcome is to apply out-dated methods into a new type of problem. It's the same thing when we decided to go with the bell-chasing instead of beating each other to death.”

“Then let me in to your thoughts,” Iruka demanded, with cool-brewed annoyance heard in his voice, “since I'm having quite a hard time connecting this circling of yours to the plan you obviously have created in order to pull us out of this one. I don't need these tricks and traps that only benefit your sorry ass—”

That seemed to mark the cue for Kakashi who suddenly didn't care when he spoke over the other's provoking words: “I’m not the only one, am I.” When hearing it, the chuunin stopped in mid-rant, and the look the jounin got from the man was telling him things that made his thoughts to second guess themselves for a bit before he righted them back and steeled his backbone for what may come next.

Iruka stayed silent, his gaze fixing itself on the fence before his voice took the stage. “Not in the way you make it sound. Not when—” The dark eyes sharpened and turned to give a frustrated look at the muddy ground before settling to scowl somewhere in the vicinity of the other's pale shoulder and finally turning to answer the other's gaze.

For all that the older shinobi was, the man stood unusually rigid for a person with his slouch. “That was unexpected of you.”

“I'd recommend you to check your people-reading skills if you thought that I'd start acting by a dictated script,” Iruka rebuked deceivingly mildly while trying to focus more on the matters that had punched him in the gut rather than the other surfacing emotions that were regrouping in his hips. With that, he turned on his heels and called the other over his shoulder before taking his leave towards the terrace. “I've had enough. I already told you my opinion, and I still think that you're about to make a very stupid suggestion. I don't need that from you.”

Considering the implications of such change in behavior, Kakashi gave his deductions the permission to turn into words. “The point in losing inhibitions is that at first there needs to be something that has to be inhibited.” It dropped, heavy and deafening, as he called after the other man to banish the walls between them, the thought that had teased him during the past days until the latest hours, ever since they had sat together on the terrace on that one fateful evening and he had let out the question that had not let go of his curiosity. “Denying the connections does not negate their existence.”

It was paradoxically silly how time could suddenly push and pull itself into frozen motion that still felt like it was hell-bent on breaking the sound barrier.

Alas, Iruka didn't spare a thought on such trivial things as he was too busy keeping himself under control when he spun around to face the man who was rather persistent in putting their name to his to-kill list. “What was that.” Neither of them seemed to notice the lack of question in there, yet it didn't matter, as they were both already pulled into something that had started to form between them ever since that one late match performed on the same yard.

As it was, there were no traces of emotional hints on Kakashi's face. “Creatures of habit, didn’t you say once.” He took a step forward, and let himself walk closer to the other man despite the clash of sensations that clawed at his insides on every step. As he observed the other to take in what had been said, the ex-ANBU kept his gaze fixed on the younger man. The expression that spread on the scarred face was, at first, hard for him to categorize: the mixture of apprehension, defiance and something that made his stomach do a backward flip. After a couple of steps, he stopped, and the gray eye turned up to peer at the blue sky above, the small breeze fluttering the mane of messy hair of the man who stood stock still for a quiet minute, hands in his pockets and a slouch to his stance, while sending out a faint wish that should the chuunin choose to throttle him it would be swiftly executed.

At the sight of the elite, Iruka felt a chill run down his spine – he didn't dare to think of it further but instead put his body on the move, dodging out of range and circling the pale man from the blind side. “Accusing me of selecting my remaining options doesn't entitle you to force my hand at your call, bastard.”

“How low do you think my morals are?” Kakashi snapped back, and for a moment let himself scowl at the shocked blink he received from the younger man. Then, he took a deep breath in order to gain back his balance before continuing. “Look. I should have used my head properly in some situations, that I admit. But even you can’t be this hung up on our past fights.” He could have sounded snippier had he not let his gaze turn to answer the look he could feel burning the side of his face, thus letting the teacher see the shadows that were briefly brought into light in his gray eye. “I think that you know that. Furthermore, I think you think you know what I have been thinking.”

The sudden quietness from Iruka's side was more confirming to the statement when accompanied with the way the teacher suddenly refused to meet the jounin's eye.

The bodies of air thickened when there was nothing said to dispel them, mounting and circling around them, making it harder to distinguish how long they stayed like that, frozen into place like an oddly arranged snapshot.

His hands felt like ice against his burning skin. Failing to ignore it, Iruka rubbed his nose and chin while the dark eyes looked at everywhere else than the silent man before him, the chuunin's concentration focused mostly on the heat he felt crawling further over his cheeks, ears, neck and chest. His body gave a pause at that while his internal voice let out a string of curses his students would be scandalized to hear coming from him. To counter the restlessness he could notice lurking at the forefront of his mind, he silently commanded his body to breathe, slow and deep, until he started to fit inside his skin once again.

That was the issue, a part of him pointed out.

Barely a second after that note, there began an itch under his skin, and he instantly knew when the man observing him took notice. What he also then knew was that it had only been a matter of when. “There’s no possibility to know. Not like this.”

“No,” was the single word dropped between them, yet it felt like multiplying into thousands when Kakashi's low voice continued: “I can’t say that there is.”

Iruka didn't know if he should be embarrassed of his slow processing time or prepare himself for a seizure when his ingrained instincts made him suddenly notice several things that rushed into focus at once. “This is far from it. There’s too many loose ends. Too many ifs.”

“But not too many still,” Kakashi offered evenly. “Though the level of challenge is understandable. It’s hard to tell the truth when most of our income relies on habitual lying.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” he let himself agree weakly, and Iruka allowed a couple of dry chuckles to follow. What came out from his mouth after that, however, turned the chuckles into an awkward cough. “I guess the blame falls equally.”

“As well the consequences.” When everything was considered, that hit the closest to what they both knew needed to be put into words. When he noticed the sudden lack of expressions on the other’s face, for a moment Kakashi wondered if he had read the man completely wrong. But when the younger nin’s high cheeks tinged with red as the man squared his shoulders and focused his gaze up at the sky, he knew.

“…Suppose they do, then,” was then put between them, yet spoken as if Iruka could not quite believe hearing himself say it. “There are plenty of options of what would become of it.”

“There are,” the jounin agreed with a small nod. Then, the man tilted his head to the side, as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing from a different angle. “Most of them include risks.”

The quietness in the chuunin’s reply was more than what they needed to see behind the words. “A shinobi is always aware of the risks.”

“…Not merely a shinobi, necessarily.” Kakashi could pinpoint the moment when his cheeks heated up after that notice had dropped out of his mouth. Well.

There was a saying of six seconds that he had always found rather annoying [1], but when he took in the flush that became visible over the edge of the dark mask, and the following result of his heart deciding to hammer its way out of his chest, Iruka found himself counting. “…You have three seconds to explain yourself.”

“Maa…” The speed for the jounin’s hands to pull down the man’s mask beat the chuunin to it. “I’d rather demonstrate.”

The words were barely registered in his mind when a pair of soft lips and a tongue made an attempt to push them down to his throat, which Iruka readily let happen, opening his lips with a moan while blinking the fireworks of electric blue out of his vision. His hands grappled blindly for a good grip on the man's neck and sleeveless shirt, pulling the willing body flush with his own and his tongue tasted the tang of the foul curse the other choked on together with him when their minds were wiped completely white. The rush of haze overwhelmed him, making him feel both nauseous and enraptured at the same time when he crashed back down to the feel of teeth nipping at his earlobe, of strong fingers digging into his thigh, hips and legs steering him against the fence wall that thumped against his back.

“Kakashi,” he breathed, husky and urgent, into the mouth he managed to grab for a taste, “wait—”

The man he spoke to, however, didn't seem to hear him the first time, and amid the sparkles of pleasure and mind-numbing haze, the chuunin barely had the state of mind to resist from being picked up and squashed right between the older shinobi and the fence, his hands having a hard time deciding if they should stop the pale man from cupping and groping his ass and thighs in such an obvious manner by grabbing them in turn, or just promptly slug the man in the nose and risk breaking it the second time. Luckily his tongue had not been rendered completely useless by that point: “I'll —ah, shit— kill you if you fuck me here in public.”

Choked laughter rumbled from the older man at his words and the teacher would have felt smug had his body not made further contact with the other's hips then, more accurately with the hot hardness that dug into the pants fabric right next to his own. The resulting sizzle of heat that was ignited inside him boomed like thunder and made his eyes roll back, him barely hearing the keen sound that left the man embracing him.

By this point, Kakashi was faintly surprised that he could still decode in his fuzzy head what the dark-haired teacher was threatening him with, let alone throw a comment back: “Best not to, then.”

The pangs of desire made him weak on the knees, which made him discard the option of slinging the younger man over his shoulder and carrying him to the nearest futon – admittedly he suspected if they would even make it there. The way one tan hand grabbed him by the head and made his nose bury itself into the tail of dark hair while the other pulled viciously at his top to reveal skin for the eager mouth that attacked his throat, neck and shoulder made him certain of that. That noted, his hands got serious with plucking the other man from merging with the fence and then bullying their way over the puddles and mud, up the step of the porch and slamming them against the nearest wall before he attacked the chuunin's sweats. “Better?”

“Yes—” When a pale hand grabbed him inside his pants, stroking from base to tip in feverish rhythm that made his hips roll in time with it, snapping up with a mixture of pre-come and semen being pumped out at the same time, Iruka let out a whine to all of it making it more difficult for him to reach for the cock he could feel burning a hole into the jounin's sweats. Once he did get ahold of it, however, he felt like dying when the older man's body gave a full-body shudder against him and the man squeezed him just so.

The second death came and collected them when the jounin had the terribly brilliant idea of working them both together, and even though he could end up bursting a vein or two in his head, Iruka, at that moment, was more than happy to give a hand in that as long they didn't stop.

He knew he was a genius, which probably meant something for the village, and yet Kakashi didn't give a flying fuck when his brain disintegrated with every pull and consequential shudder that tossed him into a tunnel-vision of blue and white, making him chase after the scents that filled his nose, the warmth of the man who was stroking them to final completion with him and the noises that made him twist his hold—fuck—

Oh dear kami-sama he didn't care if he was going to die was Iruka's only surviving thought before his dazed eyes crossed and his mind shut itself down under the barrage of needle-sharp electric impulses wrecking havoc in his writhing body, blowing up his mind and rushing to the tips of his toes, making them curl and dig into the wooden floor. His knees gave out, his thighs gripped desperately at the strong legs supporting him and he savored the play of firm muscles underneath the warm fabric while he incoherently encouraged the other to press him more firmly against the hard wall, not relenting in the grip or the movement, not the least, not yet, please not—

It was the expression on the other's face which he could see through the blue haze that did him in, the unrestrained, uncontrolled keen that rose from the man's throat which Kakashi swallowed like a greedy drunkard when he crashed their lips together and snapped off his leash; his mind erupting into million sparkles that scattered across the planes of pleasure, branding a hot line down his spine and releasing the pressure in his hips with irresponsible glee, making the pupils of the mismatched eyes flash bright blue as they stared unseeing at the wall of white steel that nailed him on passing.

Iruka didn't know when exactly he had started floating, but when he came down his legs were shaking uncontrollably, his lungs heaving like he had been held under water, ears ringing and something that distantly sounded like moaned curses flowing out of his slack mouth oh— oh fuck. The man who panted loudly against his ear seemed to agree with him, if the slurry mumbling and moaning was any confirmation considering the state they both were in. As a further proof for his muddled brain, the chuunin choked on a chuckle at the completely irrelevant, grateful thought that pointed out him to be still standing because of the heavily slumped jounin pinning him into place against the wall — if the way they still held onto each other's sticky lower parts had any role in that was still under debate somewhere in the other distant parts of his mind.

“What,” croaked the low bass by his ear, hoarse and spent — and yet, there was a toothy smile pressed against the tan throat.

Iruka figured he could blame the disorienting chemical imbalance in his bloodstream for nuzzling the pale neck with his nose by a way of countering the question.

Before either of them could intelligently put together what then were the options for how they could proceed from there, however, there spoke a voice that made the blood that had almost managed to redistribute itself equally in their limbs to freeze to the last drop.

“I would like to know as well.”

Feeling the jounin's mouth clamp against his throat didn't help beating off the dark red hue that overcame the exposed teacher's cheeks, adding to the fact that not only did he then realize to have an unmasked Hatake meshing his face with his jugular but his and the said elite's fisted hands were still holding onto the apparent evidence that was by some irrational strike of luck somewhat hidden thanks to the pale man's body blocking the most of it from the group of people that crowded on the terrace.

He was, however, quite skeptical that Tsunade-sama and her accompanying team who all had undoubtedly been around for a few unmistakably good minutes would not have been able to form a rather clear idea on what they had bamphed upon.

At least, if it came to the way one furiously blushing Hyuuga medic was gripping onto a stiffly standing ANBU who looked rather faint himself.

Where was the strike of lightning when one needed it, the teacher found himself wondering.

Against the teacher's initial fear, and to his honest bafflement, considering that he was the one staring at their probable death in the flatly staring amber eyes, the Godaime calmly turned to look at her team who, by some measure of healthy fear for the unreadable look she had on her face then, stood in attention and fled back into the house through the kitchen door. After the Hyuuga had been carefully steered inside, Tsunade once more turned to look at the idiots before her. Coming to the conclusion that however she thought about reacting most likely wasn't worth whatever it would result with, she spoke: “Go get washed off and report in ten minutes.”

That said, she sauntered after the others and let the door close after her, cutting off the heavy silence that lingered around the two men who were still leaning against each other.

As if trying to lighten the mood, the jounin who suddenly decided to add his own input to the situation sounded surprisingly optimistic when he mumbled against the chuunin's pulse: “...At least she didn't demand a sample.”

The caws of the birds above drowned the silent groan that Iruka let out when he thumped his forehead against the pale shoulder.

There was something distinctly embarrassing, sitting alone in the training room with one's leader while hearing the hushed sounds of medics puttering in the kitchen while at the same time listening to the ANBU taking out the trashed bathroom doors – a fun fact that kept reminding Iruka that after they had come down from the stupor they had had to use the toilet sink to clean up lest they risk giving the medical team more data to take notes on than what they had already witnessed.

He fervently hoped that it was not their dirty laundry he just noticed passing the doorway in the hands of the medical corps along with their freshly washed clothes.

After what felt like a minute stretched too thin, the hustle died down and the four medics he had counted to be present gathered in the training room and sat down to look at the chuunin teacher who was hard-pressed to ignore the silent exchange of notes happening in his peripheral vision by keeping his dark eyes trained on the spot right above Tsunade-sama's right shoulder. It was only logical. He might otherwise feel strongly compelled to go and drag his mission partner by the ear to suffer with him instead of letting the man take his time in the toilet.

Yet there was no denying the relief that flooded into his system when the jounin's presence joined them, the man slouching his way to where Iruka had been told to sit and settling gracefully next to him, albeit holding the same physical distance they had had at breakfast.

The sensei found himself silently agreeing with that decision, for he would have done the same.

They all waited when Shizune came in and served tea to everyone else except Tsunade and the two men who were the source for the current tic in their leader's brow. She did, however, leave two bottles of sake and a small cup by her friend before sitting down with the rest of the team, which in turn made Kakashi blink and open his mouth before Iruka could stop him.

“Isn't that my—”

The lift of a slender eyebrow from the blonde woman was daring, to put it mildly.

Fighting the urge to smack the other for the stupidity of endangering them both, Iruka mentally went through the capitals of The Five Shinobi Nations while he kept his face carefully blank.

Better to let the bastard sign his own death all by himself.

“I know you two are devoted when it comes to completing every mission and never fail to act on every request,” Tsunade's voice began over the silence, “but seeing what we did the first thing in the morning was fairly surprising even for me.” She held a pause, opening the first bottle of sake and pouring a drink for herself, not paying attention to the glances that were shared around her or the awkward looks given to the men she was currently focused on. After downing the first on one go, she poured another cup and let that stay for a while longer, the amber eyes turning to look at the pair in front of her. “Who started it this time?”

It was the shortest glance shared between them, and yet Iruka felt like they had gone through a whole conversation.

“I did, Tsunade-sama,” Kakashi said when he turned his gaze back to answer the look of his commander, his speech calm and collected. Yet he didn't get a chance to tell more when the smooth baritone cut in, making him halt in his thoughts by what he heard then.

“I'm no less guilty, Hokage-sama,” Iruka told them, voice unwavering and gaze clear, and yet he knew the jounin next to him could hear his breath tremble.

The look in the leading medic's eyes was hard to read, but the intensity in them spoke volumes to all present, along with her silence and the way she left the drink untouched, instead tucking her hands inside her wide sleeves. “Scan them,” she said to the room in general, and yet everyone knew who she addressed the words to, the young Hyuuga bringing herself forth and activating her Byakugan, face held stern despite the tinge of pink on her pale cheeks.

“This is how it's going to go.” Tsunade began once more, her voice leaving nobody without the impression that she didn't care to repeat herself: “After consulting a few leading ANBU medics, I decided that should your bodies be in the same condition as they were since the last time we boosted your pathways, we will release the seals and let you have all of your chakra reserves back. As of today, you're both temporarily out of commission. However, I will not, for the time being, let you walk out of this house.” On that note, her eyes searched first for Iruka's and then Kakashi's face, as if looking for something she only knew to seek.

“Tsunade-sama, what—” Iruka started before he even knew he had opened his mouth, but the look he was given by the woman banished the rest of what he was about to say from his tongue.

“If you think I will let you choose your options on this you're rather late with that, Iruka,” Tsunade snapped back, her voice void of warmth and compassion. “For my patience for surprises is running very thin at the moment when it comes to all that has happened here between you and the brat.”

The teacher didn't have time to argue back when the Hyuuga deactivated her gaze and turned to look at her superior. “The pathways seem mostly fine, Tsunade-sama. Only a couple of troubling ones but they're easy to overlook and boost with the rest since they're not directly connected to the vital clusters.”

“Well then,” Tsunade said and emptied her cup before standing up, flicking a sharp gesture with her hand to let the men know she meant for them to stand up as well with the rest of the medics. “Better have this dealt with so we can continue onto other matters.”

As if they had practiced it, the medics divided in two teams, with those meant to undo the seal and those staying as back-up should something go sideways – which, considering how the things had went for the past few days, was more a high probability than a mere chance.

On the heard command, the glow of green chakra illuminated the room as hand seals began to form.

It was an oddly comforting sensation, Kakashi mused, to have a rush of buzzing vitality running back into his body that had almost forgotten how it felt to have all of his chakra intact, and seeing how Iruka's eyes widened briefly he suspected it wasn't only him who felt it. Yet it took a while for him to understand that he was suddenly leaning against a few pairs of hands that lowered him to the ground, soon followed by a bout of fussing and shouting when a new set of hands checked him and he faintly registered the same done to the man they handled next to him. Oddly enough, he was sure that the chuunin hadn't looked that feverish a few moments earlier, or that his own pulse shouldn't be beating as hard as it now did, with his chest starting to feel numb and his mouth tasting like cotton.

That was the only thing he knew when his eyes rolled back.

“How do you feel?”

A steel-gray eye blinked open, only to close against the bright light that made a groan leave the masked lips. A humorless hum was detected by the pale ears, as well the rustle of paper nearby.

“I consider that as an answer,” the voice continued, the lilt in it tired yet amused on some level.

It was also very familiar.

“Tsunade-sama,” Kakashi muttered while he forced his heavy tongue to move in his mouth, “what.”

“Nothing we weren't prepared for,” the identified voice went on, casual despite what was said, and the jounin couldn't locate the infuriating woman without opening his eye the second time, peering around the room he recognized as the bedroom he had been in for the past couple of weeks. Soon enough, he found her sitting by his feet, looking through one of his paperback novels even though he knew that was only to keep her from grabbing his ankle and shaking him back to consciousness. Unceremoniously, as if driving in the point, the book was dropped onto him when the woman stood up and fixed him with a long look. “I trust you can stand up on your own.”

He wouldn't put much trust on that, seeing that it took a moment for him to test if he could move his toes, let alone feel them wiggle underneath the duvet. Yet Kakashi knew from the look he was receiving that it would be a smart thing to give it a try.

It took him a couple of fits and starts, but in the end he managed.

He wasn't, however, sure if he passed whatever it was that he was tested for. To ignore the niggling feel of his leader looking at him like one would a patient who didn't know they shouldn't be doing things they were doing, the jounin gave a look around him, if only to see if there was a certain tan man nearby going through the same kind of evaluation.

“He woke up well before you did,” the blonde woman said, this time with a smile which made Kakashi stand at ease a bit better. “Any pains?”

He considered for a moment. “Just the usual, Hokage-sama,” he answered.

“Good,” the woman nodded, “I would have hated to go through all that the second time. You both gave us quite the scare there.”

“But you had anticipated it,” Kakashi countered automatically before remembering who he was talking to, and this time there was no missing the flicker of anger and concern he could sense spiking up the medic's chakra. He had missed the early warnings.“...How is he?”

The little smile on the blonde's red lips was back but with a pull he didn't have time to analyze when the amber eyes peered over the pale shoulder at something that had appeared in the doorway. “How about he tells you himself?”

When he turned around to look, the elite wasn't sure what he was waiting to see, but the sheepish smile that he was first to register on a familiar tan face before the horizontal scar or the dark eyes was already enough to let the last of the tension leak out of his body.

“Yo,” the man standing by the doorway said, his broad shoulders relaxed, the dark hair tied up as usual and the trained body dressed up, the chuunin looking prim and proper like always; and yet he was different from the one the jounin had watched in the morning — his skin looked warmer, his posture seemed sharper.

He looked like someone Kakashi didn't know if he could step into the same room with.

“Yo, yourself,” he still replied. “You alright?” He added, cursing mildly in his mind for it sounding like an afterthought.

The answering nod was kind enough to let him off the hook, though. “Not worse than usual,” Iruka said, his voice as easy and teasing as his smile. “How about you?”

There was no helping the small smile that crept on his face, even though he could not shake the notion of something trying to catch his attention in the situation. “Maa. I’ll survive, despite their efforts,” he quipped back, smiling wider at the grin he could get from the chuunin with that.

Yet when he made a move to walk closer to the younger nin who had not stepped over the threshold to join them, not only did he then notice the ripple of uncertainty break through the smile on the man's face but he also felt Tsunade shift behind him. Before he could turn to ask the medic what it was that they weren't telling him, a firm hold on his arm halted him on his tracks; he didn't let that stop him from looking at Iruka for an answer.

Surely enough, how the dark eyes spoke to him when the man stopped smiling told him enough.

Chapter Text

Barriers, to shinobi population, were a wonderful invention. They kept the unwanted contained either inside or outside, had their weight measured by the ones summoning them, and they protected, sheltered, killed and sustained those they were meant for. In that sense, Kakashi surmised, it was a bit odd to feel so offended by a ripple of bright fuchsia and the hum of a high-ranking seal as he let his hand touch lightly the barrier that was separating him from the training room he was currently staring into.

"You said you had anticipated this," he heard himself argue faintly while taking a measured step to distance himself from the barrier, and specifically the man who was kept behind it.

"Quit with the drama, brat. I said it was nothing we hadn't prepared for - we knew things would get screwed up from the get-go. We just didn't anticipate it to be this, of all things," Tsunade snapped beside the pale jounin and then pulled him to the side before stepping between the two men who kept looking at each other over the threshold. Or, more accurately to her eyes, Kakashi looked when Iruka shifted his weight, the chuunin's strong thighs and sharp cock of a hip capturing the gray eye for a lingering second before the man's brain pulled it forcefully back to concentrate on his superior. "Had I known that you two had managed to progress this far with this whole thing I would have called back the plan."

The choice of words made Kakashi finally focus completely on the absurdity of their situation. It was also enough to make his apathetic mind to flicker back to flame. "How can you even overcharge a shinobi's chakra system and then temporarily add another element to their core affinity without killing them on the spot? Shouldn't he be bouncing off the walls?" Or at least be calling upon one hell of a storm, considering the temper type. That fact had started to become more urgent in his gradually forming opinion when it came to looking at the younger man standing there in his own literal bubble, appearing cool as a cucumber, while getting the distinct impression of the teacher barely fitting inside his skin.

To live through every disastrous plot twist only to end up wondering if getting finally involved with the attractive academician could get him killed. Wonderful.

"We had a talk about that already when you were still passed out, Kakashi," Iruka then joined the conversation after taking his time in the background, the chuunin's voice sounding surprisingly clear even through the wall of rippling monochrome. "Or rather, a shouting match. You'd think that they would have thought about that," he then added, and as long as he had known the man, the ex-ANBU had never thought the emphatic teacher to be capable of showing so much blatant contempt.

On the other hand, they were charging quite an uncharted territory right then, and since this was the nth time they were left off feeling worse than what they had been before the intervention from the medics, Kakashi could relate. Even the discreet hum of the discussed barrier seemed to mock all of them. "Hopefully this is not becoming a thing."

Considering the doubly peeved looks he then received from both the academy instructor and their village leader, they had thought so too apparently.

"Seeing that you both can still grant me unnecessary comments makes me think that we haven't done enough damage," Tsunade stated dryly, "and despite what your mission partner here claims -," she then said with a glare pointed directly to the equally glowering teacher in question, "- we have thought about this." She perhaps could have saved the dramatic pause for some other day, but this was not such a moment to consider that. "What we know about chakra is that it is a fluid thing: easy to manipulate, easy to use, and easy to either suppress or enhance with proper training. What we know about the elemental affinities is that they are innate characteristics to most of the shinobi population, with some exceptions. As it has already been stated, these two act as the foundation for a shinobi. However," the weary sigh in the word gave some foreshadowing to what was about to be announced, "this mission has proven that neither of these two things work as we had initially thought. The channeling that has happened between your elements and chakra should be impossible, not to mention an elemental shifting from one person to another. It simply should not happen, at least not naturally to this extent."

Before Kakashi could think of anything to say, the dark-haired chuunin was already piping in his thoughts about it all: "With all due respect, Tsunade-sama, there are many things that simply should not happen that have, oddly enough, happened-"

"Be quiet." The sharp snap from the Hokage was expected but not without a flinch from them both. After a fleeting staring contest with the seething sensei in question, the superior commander gave her temples a brief rub and turned to address the other shinobi who had also been actively contributing to her frequent migraines. "How do you feel at the moment, Hatake?"

Given that he was spoken to like the weapon he was rather than a human being with feelings, the asked jounin knew he had very few answers to choose from. "Well enough to continue the mission, Hokage-sama." The way he saw Iruka's eyes widen briefly before the chuunin seemingly caught himself staring and turned his gaze away from Kakashi made him ask himself if that had been the correct choice.

Then again, the approving nod he was given by his leader told another story. "Then let's get this done properly this time, for once," Tsunade said with a more sedate tone and rolled the tension off her shoulders. "Like I told you before, you both will stay in this house until further notice, as you're both temporarily out of commission. However, since you both seem rather adamant in fucking up every single thing on this mission when there's nobody keeping tabs on you, this barrier -," she explained and then pointed at another doorway across the training room, "- and that ANBU should keep you two efficiently separated for a couple of hours when I come up with a new plan. The barrier is designed to keep Iruka's person out of reach for everyone else, and only me and that ANBU know the signs for it, so in theory you should be able to share the house without blowing anything, or anyone, up. Although kami knows how many of my theories have been debunked so far." The two trained spies felt sure that the last muttered part from their leading medic was meant for them to hear, just out of spite.

As he looked over to whom he recognized as Hare, the observed ANBU gave Kakashi a happy wave back, with a flicker of sharp-edged blue glow passing the top of their gloved fingers. Ah. An ANBU medic whose wonderful personality was not the reason for their fame. The jounin had a nagging feeling that the elite in question was not a willing volunteer. "Isn't this all a bit much, Tsunade-sama? To have a barrier cutting off the physical contact and a Black Op sitting for two grown shinobis seems a bit excessive."

"Actually it isn't," Iruka cut in then. At the questioning look he got from the older nin, the chuunin decided to elaborate on his Hokage's behalf. "It's more for your safety rather than anything else, really." By a way of continuing the answer, a sudden sharp flick of a tan wrist produced a clear blue lightning that tore through a few more unfortunate tatami mats until it struck the barrier on it's way out to the terrace, it dissipating with a loud bang right before it could reach the unfazed ANBU medic's porcelain mask.

As he took in the bewildered stare from the ex-ANBU's lone gray eye, it was only for a brief moment that Iruka let his gaze glide over the older man before focusing to look at the blackened path starting from his feet and the dying sparks that danced over his fingertips. "I have only the slightest control over your affinity, and having it mixed with mine isn't really helping. As a matter of fact, I can barely keep myself from throwing lightning bolts around as we speak. Kami forbid what would happen if I sneezed when you're close by."

"Before you say anything, he did sneeze once," Tsunade added with a sidelong look given to the silver-haired jounin, and it was only then that Kakashi noticed her missing the ever-present green jacket, and that the hem of her beige tunic did seem a bit charred. "Who knows why he didn't boil up from the inside when your element decided to take the literal leap of faith, but I for one am not so keen to test that odd strike of luck."

So getting involved could get them both killed. "Maa. So the barrier stays."

The younger man seemed to agree, if the sharply raised dark eyebrow was any indication.

"Only for a couple of hours," Tsunade amended and let the line of her shoulders soften with a sigh. "I suppose you could use that time to recover your chakra reserves. Eat something light and take a nap. Umino on the other hand could run some hundred laps to even out the lot. It would certainly make it all easier if your levels of fatigue were even close to the same levels. Hare has my direct orders to interfere, however they feel necessary, if anything starts to develop between you two," the woman mused to herself, only partially humoring their situation, before giving her both subordinates a strict look. "Part of me is tempted to leave either Shizune or my clone here with you. However, knowing you both I know that it would be a waste of energy and resources. I'll just have to trust that neither of you is actually crazy enough to try to break through the barrier or the ANBU. Can I trust you with this?"

However the past days had put a strain on their mentalities and prides, both Iruka and Kakashi knew where their loyalties lied. Seeing them both nod in unison seemed to placate their Hokage, for which all of them were somewhat relieved.

"..Until later then," Tsunade then murmured, and one hand seal later, the little gray house held one shinobi less, the shift in the air giving room for the awkward silence that cautiously crept out of the dark corners where it had hurriedly huddled itself in.

"..So," came with a cough from the chuunin's side of the barrier and Kakashi turned to look at the man who had been the topic for many of their discussions already. Seeing the man scratch his scarred nose in a familiar manner did help him to meet the dark eyes that were sneaking glances at their newly assigned guard. "What now?"

Somewhere in his mind, a small voice wondered if the masked elite had heard the tone of the question correctly, but then he decided to pay attention to more pressing issues. "Well, I could use some coffee," he waged a thought before also glancing at the ANBU who stood in attention. "Then we could talk. If you want to."

This time, there was no mistaking the cautiousness in Iruka's voice when he dropped down his tensed shoulders with a heavy sigh. "Yes. We should."

It was, oddly enough, a pleasant affair between them when Kakashi went to brew himself a cup under the watchful eyes of Hare and then returned to the bedroom to settle down on his futon. It had also became apparent that Iruka had not been idle during the time when they had waited for the jounin to regain consciousness. "I see that you were permitted to have your tea supplies on that side."

"To be honest, it was Tsunade-sama's idea, and I agree that it makes this a bit easier to bear," Iruka replied sheepishly while steeping himself a cup of oolong, and then the chuunin gave a small nod towards their current keeper: "It also saves them from the risk of showing us the hand seals that open up the barrier. Though I don't know if my inevitable toilet break was taken into account."

To their credit, Hare had sat down on the porch with their back turned to their wards, the lean, armored hands busying themselves with something they worked with on their lap, and did not indicate to be listening in on the conversation that was taking place behind their back. Their assigned subjects, however, were not as foolishly trusting as any other shinobi, and they all knew that.

Kakashi mentally raised his hackles at the faint scrape of paper he could detect from his former senpai's direction, even more so when he saw Iruka to notice it as well. The ANBU was making notes, either on their case or for something completely else, and obviously making them conscious about it. The way how Iruka raised his eyebrows over sipping his tea and directed an incredulous and disbelieving stare at the contently scribbling ANBU's head was quite a scene to the masked jounin who observed the situation unfold. However, as the chuunin turned to him for answers, Kakashi knew when not to make himself the target of an ANBU medic's ire, so he merely shrugged. "...Maa, they know what they're doing." Then he decided to phrase the actual question they should focus on. "Most likely they also know more than we do. What were you told when I was out?"

This time it was Iruka's turn to shrug. "The same as you were. From what I could tell, they are not sharing any further speculations with us at the moment." Then, to the jounin's surprise, the chuunin gave a fleeting glance at the ANBU's direction before leaning closer to their shared barrier and lowering his voice: "Albeit I think there may not be any need for that." However, as if suddenly remembering himself, the teacher stopped on whatever he was about to say next and cast an indecisive look at the lone cup of tea he held in his tan hands.

The jounin followed the line of the chuunin's gaze before lifting it back to observe the other, and took in what was before him. The restlessly shifting man who sat on the floor and held his drink was, by any account, the same man he had been with for the past weeks. And yet watching the fragments of uncharacteristic mannerism surfacing barely through the man's carefully practiced social masks made a cold shiver rake its nails down his spine. The thought of it all being merely a result of his own affinity re-wiring the innate controls within the younger nin's manner of self-expression didn't make him feel any better about their topic of conversation. And yet. "You found something, didn't you."

The quietly spoken affirmation seemed to snap the younger man back to present, but it took Iruka longer than a moment to move his gaze to respond to the lone gray eye that he could sense drilling a single hole into the barrier. "You know The Eight Inner Gates."

The sudden stop of the scraping pen did not go unnoticed, and therefore Kakashi knew he could be forgiven for hesitating before replying to the unexpected statement, the silvery eyebrows drawn down in perplexed curiosity. "Every jounin in Konoha knows them. Are you suspecting a connection?"

The shake of the dark-haired head was curt. "Not a connection. A possible...source, I think." Iruka was sure he would never forget how it felt to have the complete attention of two ANBUs directed at him at the same time. "I once witnessed Gai-san doing it, during one demonstrative class. Not all of them, of course, but this...this resembles the logic." With that the scarred man motioned towards himself and circled his hand vaguely over the areas that they both knew to mark the locations of the mentioned Gates. "You remember when I told you how our match intensified for me that one time. How my speed and strength increased temporarily. And then you went the other day to punch an ANBU through a wall. Now, we know it all happened because of the channeled chakra flow, and possibly because of our elemental hierarchies. We know that we both experienced it, but we also know, like Tsunade said, that it should not happen by any natural cause, especially on shinobis who have very different ranks and elemental affinities - or, when you phrase it differently, who rarely, if ever, open and use the Gates in a combat. Yet those incidents are similar to the first two, the Gate of the Opening and the Gate of Rest. " The dark eyes narrowed down and for a moment, the dark-skinned shinobi seemed to weigh his thoughts carefully before he let himself continue: "..If..if we would look it in that way, then it could become possible that the source for the growing problems we have is not in fact our obvious natural differences or our behavioral habits, but only one specific thing that we have in common on this mission, which has artificially affected our bodies from the very beginning, and which I activated on us both."

Kakashi kept his eye trained to the chuunin before him, his mind trying to comprehend what he had just heard, and felt his insides suddenly wind tight like a stretching moment of silence before striking lightning, as he came to the halting conclusion that they might have grasped something solid for a change. "...You're seriously suggesting that."

If anything, the gaze of the chuunin felt like the man tried his best to keep it all in his grip. "That's why I wanted to talk with you first, before bringing this to Tsunade. It could just be my current condition messing with my head, but-" Iruka murmured with hastily formed words and then turned to glance cautiously at Hare who had turned to face them on the terrace and followed their conversation without even trying to be discreet about it. An itch began under the skin on his fingers, but he chose to press forward. "But I can clearly feel something...trying to open itself. It would explain why boosting up our pathways always led us to developing new symptoms, why our bodies seemed to push over our usual limits whenever we dealt with an internal or external trigger or channeled chakra between ourselves, why my body became the first confirmed instigator, and why we're now at this point when removing the seals altogether has made the situation even worse." As he spoke, the itch started to spread, crawling up to his spine and down to his jaw bones, it making his mouth resist his calmly delivered words, and he knew when others could hear his voice losing its composure. "The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that it has already been evolving, but I failed to recognize it, because it simply should not happen. I don't know how or why, but when they opened the seal, it felt like there was a gate thrown open -" and then it rippled through, a buzzing charge of a lightning bolt that frizzled over the chuunin's surprised expression and made the dark eyes squeeze shut in what seemed like briefly experienced pain, but not quickly enough for the perceptive jounin to miss the glint of electric blue flashing in the man's slanted eyes.

"Shit," Kakashi heard himself gasp as he lunged from his seat to check the chuunin closer, only barely stopping his masked nose from crunching against the barrier that gave an echoing hum at his frustrated fist as he hit it with an aggravated growl. As he gradually realized that the ANBU still remained in a relaxed yet vigilant stance behind the barrier, not a single hair on them telling about an actual emergency, it was enough for Kakashi to draw in a deep breath to banish the storm from rising inside him and focus once more on the man in front of him, the jounin shifting his posture to lean closer to the rippling force field between them before quietly addressing the ominously tensed teacher. "Maa...Iruka?"

Surely enough, the man snapped his attention straight back to the jounin after hearing his name called, his usual self surfacing back from wherever it had ventured into during those slow seconds. "Where was I?"

As Hare still made no move to intervene the situation, Kakashi concluded it to be a permission for him to take it upon himself. He was, after all, still their team leader, and as he carefully took note on the underlying distress in the chuunin's thoughtful frown, as he could not dismiss the turbulence of alarm that had rushed through him at the thought of finally getting a name to the danger they were facing, the ex-ANBU knew he could not leave things stand as they were. "Maa. Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you were right where I needed you." Then he lifted his sharpened gaze to look straight into Hare's mask's eye holes, his tone of voice ringing with the feared authority of a former ANBU captain: "Get Tsunade-sama."

"...You're serious about this," Tsunade's voice disturbed the stunned silence that slouched between the Hokage and her four subordinates. Shizune gave a worried glance at her superior for the undertone she could detect in the spoken words, and then continued writing down her hastily gathered notes. Hare stood in silent attention, their body rooted on their designated spot on the terrace, and yet their unwavering focus spoke volumes. Maybe that was why Kakashi took a moment to gather his thoughts for rephrasing what he had just revealed to their village's leading shinobi.

"Iruka was able to provide solid evidence to support it."

The tsk from the painted lips echoed like a whip, but the softened huff took off the worst edge before the Hokage narrowed her eyes at the two men before her. "But how can an averagely trained chuunin stir open a Gate, undetected, of all things, and then proceed to fuck up a perfectly trained jounin? It does not make any sense. No offense Umino, but that sounds really far-fetched even for your skills."

By a way of commenting, the addressed chuunin lifted an eyebrow at that and then snapped a small flick of a lightning to run over his fingers, which, Kakashi had noticed while they had waited for their superior, worked to relax him whenever the pressure from the invasive element started to get too much. "Can I see the seals once more, Hokage-sama?"

With an equally sharp snap, the requested seal paper appeared in a fair-skinned hand and was then pushed against the wall of fuchsia for a closer look. They all gave the teacher his time as he stepped close to the barrier and squinted at the seal designs, tilting the dark-haired head from one side to the other in thought. After a while, Kakashi started to doubt if they had called it wrong after all, and then they all heard it, a sharp intake of breath from the chuunin which was more than what Tsunade needed to pull the paper back and fix the dark-skinned instructor with a look that could have rivaled Raikage's scowl on a very trying day. "Report."

"It is a very small detail, but I guess that is all it needed. Look at the double line on the right side, Tsunade-sama," Iruka said and gave a vague gesture at the mentioned side of the paper. As he watched, all three shinobis in the bedroom gathered over the slip of paper and focused their gazes upon it. "If I'm not mistaken, that design makes the seal not only focus on resetting chakra reserves but also refocusing it to use that chakra to open a Gate. All it needed was a push of chakra to mark its target, and the moment I activated them both I marked myself, even though the other also affected Kakashi because, as you stated, it had a chance to use his chakra too to mess up his systems while trying to reach its designated victim."

The hush of silence that fell upon their small party was made of heavier matter than air, at least in Kakashi's opinion, as he glanced back and forth between the quiet teacher and their leading medic who stared at the drawn lines decorating the fragile fragment of parchment. As he glanced over at Shizune and Hare, it seemed that he was not the only one wondering if they should give the two shinobis some space - if only for their own safety.

It was Iruka's calmly spoken words that broke the accumulated tension, the smoothly ringing baritone sounding oddly nervous to those who knew the man: "I should have not assumed at a first glance when I read the descriptions and checked the seals, Tsunade-sama. I'm equally at fault here. They appeared correct, with only minor differences that were very easy to overlook since they did not drastically change the ultimate outlines."

Calmly, the fair-skinned fingers folded and then perished the small seal paper with a small flame, the blonde eyebrows glowing shortly with red-tinted light as they were drawn in deep thought on the marked forehead. After a moment's of silence, the painted lips twitched and the amber eyes turned to look at the spoken nin, the hard gleam in them sharpened by the hum that came from the woman. "Isn't this a fine mess. A whole host of problems which never properly added up, since we kept only focusing on the differences and the conflicts you had while missing the only obvious thing you two actually had in common. How it all got tied to your elemental power balance was most likely just a nasty coincidence that played right into the seal's missive. I knew I should have asked for a second opinion when I made the seal designs based on the incomplete information."

"So I was right when I said we should stop feeding it," Kakashi heard himself drawl and then gave himself a mental groan when all eyes fell upon him suddenly. "Though to be fair, I think it's not solely the seals that made up every issue we have, since activating them did not cause any immediate reaction in either of us. This is just the catalyst we're looking at."

"The thing about Gates is that you let loose." A new, mask-muffled voice spoke suddenly from the other side, and all turned to look at the ANBU medic who had kept their patient attention on the small gathering over the other side of the training room. At the baffled looks they received for their suggestion, Hare shortly considered if they should contribute to the solution at all. "You don't control it when it opens, you don't even attempt to control it, or the way of how it uses the body, which is why it is so dangerous to begin with. You two, on the other hand, from what I've learned, did the complete opposite the moment when the problems started, since you did not know what you were dealing with - the things you worked with were far from it. You applied regular training to an irregular technique, and thus made the whole idea of the Gates self-destruct in a paradox - rather spectacularly, I might add," they said, and could not help the sliver of dry amusement coloring their musings.

Though they had a feeling that others may not share their amusement, if the varying states of stares they received were anything to go by. By a way of side-stepping the danger, a mere shrug lifted their armored shoulders, as if offering others a chance to interpret their words as they wanted. Their following words, however, were on another track: "I have looked at Umino-san's medical information, and if I think about it from this perspective, it does share similarities to an advanced Gate user. Pathways close to collapsing, several physiological symptoms that were a result of harm done to muscles and nerve system, and temporary changes in the body's natural behavior. Why the weight of those anomalies lies in hormonal dysfunction rather than destructive deterioration of the body which would have clued us in sooner is anybody's guess."

"Referring to that," Iruka stated after a small cough, "it does not add up with the ANBU incident. That is the only thing I cannot explain, if all this is because of me targeting myself with my own chakra and then leeching off on Kakashi."

"Not all side-effects are clearly connected to the source of the primary symptoms, Iruka-sensei," Tsunade mused and put a finger on her painted lips in thought. Then, the counting started. "One. You both collapse because your chakra pathways shoot to hell - but the first collapse happened to Iruka-san, who, lets not forget, was able to continue his day after that. Two. Your elements decide to screw over your limbic systems, not to mention the hormonal responses, and make you both hornier than what supposedly either of you have ever experienced so far in life." If the choking of the snorting ANBU medic on the terrace was anything, the Hokage surmised her bodyguards would have gossip material for days to come. "Three. The ANBU happens. And somewhere in the middle of all this there is a whole lot of chakra channeling and near-death cases disturbing enough to give me headaches for a few weeks. Finally coming to what we witnessed in the morning, and as I am starting to understand, that has also been brewing somewhere there between you two." As she listed her observations, Tsunade kept a keen eye on the two men who had yet to react to what they were told. On a second thought, they knew their Hokage was not appointed to her role for mere prowess in battle, so it was supposedly only a matter of when she'd voice out such conclusions. "I can't say if that is the reason for all of the odd side-effects you've developed, but my educated guess is that it definitely plays a part in this. Most likely the ANBU is connected to that specific area. He healed fine, by the way," she then added and gave a fleeting smile at the look of passing relief on the chuunin's scarred face.

"So we have simultaneous processes overlapping," Kakashi stated, and sure enough, a nod from the blonde medic confirmed it. Well. This was becoming rather interesting. "How do we separate them?"

"You don't," Tsunade cut with more edge to her words than anyone had heard in a while. "This is beyond something as simple as that. If you cannot anymore distinguish one symptom from another and place them in any chronological or pathological context then removing one randomly will most certainly have a counter effect to what you tried to achieve. As much as I hate to say it, this is something that needs to run its course," the woman then said and gave a rub at her forehead, it easing the pull she could already feel on her nerves. "For what it's worth, you have all your chakra reserves back, or, well, will eventually. So that will, hopefully, act as a balancing factor when it comes to manipulating an unhinged Gate, once you actually reach your natural levels."

"How long will it take to reach that, Tsunade-sama?" Iruka then asked, and as much as he loathed to admit, he was willing to bet that neither he nor the masked jounin would like the answer.

"That is something I won't even start to guess. In worst case scenario it will take double the time it took you two to end up like this, considering how long it had time to develop to this point." The Hokage shook her head and gave a look at Shizune. "Taking into account that Shizune even found those hormonal anomalies in brat's lab samples tells that it has progressed far enough in your bodies that recovering from long-term Gate exposure takes more than just a brisk run in a park. The fact that you can even function to this level as you currently are is actually astounding in itself."

"Why not let them at it." The ANBU medic cut in once more, this time giving a vague gesture towards their former senpai. "Hatake-san's chakra reserves are charging up as we speak, and since the seals are no more affecting either of them, Umino-san's body should only be relying on the abundance of chakra it currently has and not continue using Hatake-san's. It would quicken the process to have Umino-san run for its worth, and Hatake-san is an actual lightning wielder, so he should know how to manipulate that to his benefit rather than get fried on the spot. At least in theory. I could watch."

"If I didn't know you better I'd say that you're somehow enjoying this, Hare," Tsunade drawled and lifted a challenging eyebrow at the elite medic in question, who in response gave an amused chuckle. As a point to be driven in, she crossed her infamously strong arms over her chest and gave an introspective look at the lint on her cleavage. "Nothing good has come from testing out theories on this mission. But you do have a point-"

"Excuse me, but have you forgotten all what we have been listing in the past two minutes?" Iruka exclaimed sharply, with a clap of thunder backing up his rising volumes, on his side of the barrier, and to everyone's surprise turned to stomp his thunderous way to the masked medic, his voice gaining a pitch on each step he took to reach the attentively standing shinobi. "Who are you to suggest that I should 'give a run for it'? I have no intention to give anyone any kind of show of what I have been dealing with in the past weeks or expose Kakashi-san to any unnecessary danger-"

"Honorifics, sensei? For a moment I thought senpai had struck something more permanent in you than just nerves," came the low note from the addressed elite as they leaned closer to the furious man behind the barrier and interrupted the forming spiel, if only with a slightly sharper edge thrown over the light words. The look that formed on the chuunin's scarred face over the softly spoken taunt was rather fascinating to watch for the medic who had not been acquainted with the teacher whom they had only heard about earlier, almost enough for them to miss the sound of near-silent footsteps that hurried through the kitchen and entered the terrace with them. "Drop that intent senpai unless you want me to treat you as a threat," the mellow voice said as the approached medic fixed their former captain with a strict look before the jounin could reach their range. "I mean no harm."

"Then tell me what you mean, Hare," Kakashi spoke in a low voice, and was somewhat surprised to notice how knife-sharp his focus had become as he had made a storm through the house in order to stop the scene he could see his former teammate had started to manipulate. "Tell us both, in fact," he added and offered a quick look at the third nin present in their impromptu brainstorming. He had heard the taunt as he had made his way outside, and seeing the guarded look on the dark-haired chuunin's face was making his stomach flip over itself.

"I meant what I said, senpai," Hare stated and then gave both men a pause before rolling their shoulders. "The seals are not active any longer. In my logic, it should also apply to the side-effects that were caused by them, once the source has been removed. How the Gate itself reacts to stimulation remains unknown, unfortunately. However, we need to test it to know that, not just chat about it. Look underneath the underneath, that's what you always kept saying to me, senpai." Then the ANBU turned to face the ticked off chuunin who had been staring a hole into the side of their mask. "Of course, as a medic, my goal is to prevent the harm that could happen from it. That's why I would like to watch. I have no interest in anything else that goes on here."

The silent stare from the teacher spoke several volumes as the man crossed his tan arms over his chest, the dark eyes narrowing in clear suspicion before the chuunin snapped a lightning from his fingers and turned to lift an unimpressed eyebrow at the other member of the elite the chuunin was starting to see in a very different light. "Is it your training or do all ANBU members get picked for their natural drive to antagonize their assigned persons?"

The snigger that bubbled up from behind the medic's mask was all they needed to discard the short-lived animosities between them, and the elite waved their armored hand as they spoke: "Oh, now I see."

Before Iruka could do more than blink in a small epiphany, Kakashi took a firm hold onto the waving hand to serve as a warning for the chatty ANBU member and was immediately granted with their sharp attention. He was starting to remember why it rarely was relaxing to accompany Hare on a mission, their observation skills were fearsome for a whole host of reasons, for allies and enemies alike. "Not helping," he muttered and even though he knew that his current disheveled and chakra-depleted person wasn't a threat to anyone, at least he had recorded fame to pull from. Then, with a more clearer voice, he added: "You think it's safe for us to have a match?"

The masked elite nodded once, clear and precise. Then the armored hand was swiftly pulled from the Copy-Nin's grasp and the skilled fingers were tentatively flexed before relaxing again.

Considering that as an answer, the infamous Hound turned then to address the man whose input was perhaps currently the most valuable. "What do you think, Iruka?"

Visible hesitance danced on the scarred face for longer than Kakashi had expected, as if the man was trying to find an excuse to agree rather than honestly decline. Before the jounin could backtrack on the offer, the tan man pinched the bridge of his scarred nose before releasing a heavy exhale. "It is definitely not safe. I cannot guarantee what will happen if you cross over here."

As if giving themself a moment to look properly at the lower rank member, Hare tilted their masked head. "May I remind you that there are three medics present to supervise your match," they said, with a tone that told of experience they had most likely garnered from many battlefields. To their eyes, their change of tone did make the chuunin react, the dark eyes narrowing as the man faced his position, but before the ANBU could say anything else, an other voice made itself known.

"Are you three done tittering over there or should I join you?" Tsunade called out from the bedroom where she still stood with Shizune by her side, the Hokage's annoyance unmistakable to everyone present. "I heard your suggestion, Hare," she then said with a frown on her face, "I suspect that you are aware of the risks."

"An ANBU is always aware of the risks, Hokage-sama," Hare conceded with a nod and then stood in attention towards their leader. "I would like to co-supervise Umino-san's and Hatake-senpai's tag for today, Hokage-sama, if you permit. With a small addition. You might want to step back a bit, senpai," Hare said and produced a summoning scroll from their belt pouch. When others had stepped far enough, the elite went through the summons and popped out two pairs of tonfas [1], the armored hands snatching them fluidly in mid-air. "These."

The interested tilt of the blonde head surprised most of the shinobis in the light-gray house, except Shizune whose eyes also widened in realization beside Tsunade's slightly smiling figure. "Clever."

"Tonfas?" Iruka wondered aloud, evident confusion ringing in his smooth baritone. "Why would those help?"

"They help you to maintain the physical distance, sensei," Tsunade said and rubbed her chin in thought. "They are not changing your way of sparring too noticeably like many other types of weapons would, and you'd still be able to refrain from physical contact, at least in a better way than just trying to keep your fists to yourselves."

By what the man heard, and then slowly understood, the chuunin's expression changed from battling an internal conflict of interests to pedagogical curiosity, which, in Kakashi's opinion, the ANBU medic definitely had aimed for. Sly bastard.

True to their scheme, the medic was already onto it. "In other words, sensei, with these you can still offer Hatake his ass but don't need to lay a hand on him. Unless you want to."

At their words, or more likely at the image that they conjured up, a sudden bark of laughter that came from the chuunin suprised all of them. "I see," the man chuckled and wiped his eyes after the humor had died down. "You lot really are as strange as the masks you wear."

"Maa, not strange, per se," Kakashi chuckled in response before the meddling medic could put a word in, "just slightly more eccentric than the average nin." Alas, their shared moment stretched before they could help it, and as if they only then noticed each other for the first time over the course of the long day, both the jounin and the chuunin cleared their throats and fixed their eyes on the patiently waiting medic's porcelain mask.

"..Well. My point still stands," Iruka stated as a way of easing back to their initial discussion before the growing pause could start luring in the awkward silence. "Can you keep it safe?"

"I do what I can, Umino-san," the ANBU nodded and then offered one pair of weapons to the jounin standing next to them. "Tonfas are a wise decision, we don't want all your effort go to waste."

"They also happen to be your favorite choice of weapon," Kakashi drawled dryly right back at them and wasn't mistaken about the dry snort he could detect from beneath the mask.

"What can I say, I'm a sucker for efficiency, senpai," Hare noted and then turned to face the chuunin who observed them from the other side of the threshold. Without as much of a foreword, the ANBU twirled the remaining tonfas in their hands, the loud snaps of wood as the weapons settled snugly against the armored forearms scaring the gathered birds nearby. "Are these familiar to you, sensei, or should I give a demonstration with them first?"

The sharp twitch of the full-lipped mouth, and the following tic of a dark eyebrow on the dark-skinned face, were what Kakashi needed to let the ANBU sign their own death, and the jounin took his cue to turn on his heels and retreat to the backyard to warm up. He was not feeling that loyal on that day.

"Why don't you drop this barrier to find out, ANBU-san," Iruka replied with a toothy grin many who knew the man had already gotten introduced with, and from their vantage point, even Tsunade and Shizune gave glances at the teacher to check if he had any pens at hand.

"Oooh, I like you!" Came the happy exclaim from Hare, and as he twirled the weapons in his hands ready for the first set, Kakashi had to wonder if he could ever join his former teams for drinks without getting everyone on his masked neck.

"Staring at him usually doesn't make him like you any better," Kakashi muttered behind an armored back when he stretched his muscles and flexed his grip on the wooden handles that were attached to a length of wood, the given weapons feeling familiar like any other instrument in the pale hands. Though the jounin noted idly that it had been a while for him to use tonfas in any situation. He should remedy that.

"You can call it collegial curiosity, senpai," Hare stated cheerfully as the ANBU had not yet moved from their spot and held their attention on the mentioned chuunin instructor who, with the help of their leading medic's assistant, cleared the training room from all excessive clutter in preparation for the upcoming match, the ripples of fuchsia coloring the view into the spacious room. As if the chuunin had a sixth sense for ANBU-related nonsense, the dark-haired head turned and the man gave a passing look of suspicion on his way to the adjacent bedroom before closing the doors to give himself some privacy for changing. The curious medic gave a shrug at contemplative Shizune who looked at them through the barrier and then turned to join the ex-ANBU who was well into the warm-ups already. "It isn't everyday when the infamous Hound is in such a pinch."

The strike of wood against wood rang clear on the yard when Kakashi directed a hit at the chatting medic who deflected the impact on reflex, the two elites stopping for a brief staring contest. After passing a huff of breath, the silver-haired jounin gave a stretch at his sides, yet the gray eye kept its focus on the target. "Watch with the name calling. He doesn't know," the masked man admonished the other masked elite.

"...I see. What else does he not know?" Hare wondered with no particular need to actually hear the answer, and languidly twirled the extra pair of weapons they held. "Although, if you haven't yet noticed the way he looks at you when you're around then I wonder if you even know what you don't know." Then after a short pause of thought, the medic chuckled. "On the other hand, the way you stared at his ass is-"

"You are not helping," the jounin growled and a string of curses went through his mind when he could feel his masked cheeks flush red.

The way how the medic stepped closer, their armored shoulder almost touching the jounin's bare skin, their tonfa almost clacking against the other held in a pale hand, made the air pull tight around the two skilled elite assassins when the mouth beneath the porcelain mask clicked its tongue. "Hatake. You almost made Tenzou become part of a wall in a very different manner than what we're used to. I am not doing this only for your sake."

"..How is he?" Kakashi asked, and hated himself a bit for his hesitance.

"...He does not resent you for what happened, if that's what you're worried about. To be honest, he himself isn't even sure what had happened, but now I at least know that you both share a very odd taste in chuunins. Tenzou blushed up a storm when I sat down to ask him questions about Umino-san, I wonder if the same would happen with you if I ever had the chance." The ANBU medic spoke in a light tone and gave a small nudge with their armored elbow on the jounin's side. "Say, is he always that prickly with his responses or is it just my charm?"

"Maa. Keep on going like you did earlier and you'll see eventually," Kakashi drawled and offered a cheeky smile with his eyes before he pushed past the nosy medic. "Looks like they're waiting for us. Might as well get this over with." Although, considering how he felt the medic's eyes gleefully set on his back made him brace himself for the final teasing. As the nin in their painted mask caught up with his step with a happy hum, he was not disappointed.

"I wonder if this is how people feel when they see their friends go on a date."

"Beating each other with blunt weapons for a medical examination is not a date, Hare."

"It was last Friday, senpai."

"Not helping, Hare. Not helping."

"I suppose it wasn't meant to," the medic amended and gave a happy wave at the chuunin who waited for them to step on the terrace on his side of the barrier, the tan man's hands resting against the narrow hips, with Tsunade and Shizune having taken their places by the bedroom doors. Then they turned to address their slightly peeved-looking former superior for a final moment, with more or less vindictive smile hidden behind their mask. "Play nice, Hatake. I heard that it actually helps." And with that, they motioned for Iruka to take a few steps further back before they put the tonfas under their arm and flashed through a complicated series of signs, the barrier popping and reforming itself to allow the lone jounin to enter the training room. Before the miffed Sharingan user could make his way in, however, the ANBU took the tonfas back in their hand and tossed them to the chuunin, and if Kakashi knew Hare the way he had learned to, watching Iruka catch the weapons without as much of a blink made the medic slightly impressed.

On the other hand, seeing the look of a ruffled ego still visible on the chuunin's face when the man made a point in snapping the wooden instruments ready against the strong arms, the jounin briefly wondered if he would soon become the substitute target for the teacher's temper. The bored look in the gray eye gave way for a resigned sigh as he felt the barrier close up behind his slouched back, and thus shielding the chipper ANBU who most likely was getting a kick out of tormenting their former captain. Damn for his past adding unnecessary obstacles to his present life.

"Are the participants ready?" Tsunade asked from her side of the barrier, the Hokage observing her two subordinates who took their places in the training room, the men exchanging calculating looks across the torn and blackened tatami mats while squaring their shoulders and readying their stances for the first moves. The hush of anticipation felt unnerving, and she suspected not to be the only one who felt that.

She also suspected no to be the only one who sharpened their focus at a particularly loud snap of electricity that short-cirquited in the air between the two men.

"..Do you want to start slow, Kakashi?" Iruka asked in a low voice, the dark eyes peering at the jounin with single-minded focus. The moment the jounin had stepped inside the barrier, there began an itch within his muscles, his fingers twitching and back shifting, the lean muscles falling in place for whatever the elite jounin in front of him had in mind. The tonfas felt nostalgic in his hands, as if he was again in his classroom showing the weapons to his new batch of students - or on the very first mission that gave him his first taste in close combat. The heaviness of worn wood handles against his palms gave him enough even ground to stand on, which he was mildly pleased to discover. It had been a while for him to rely on them.

"Maa...I'm open to suggestions." Kakashi drawled quietly and the jounin settled into a familiar stance more out of habit than conscious choice, facing his side towards the tan teacher while lifting the given tools of destruction by his taut body. "You think you can try slow?"

The hesitant smile that crossed the scarred face could have been taken as a clear answer, but the posture of the younger shinobi spoke otherwise. "...Saa, I don't think I have any other options."

As it was, the short command from their Hokage confirmed that. "...Start!"

In lightning speed, and with a crack of thunder to accompany his lunge, Iruka pushed his body to move and covered the distance with a dash of silent feet, his fingers flexing their grip on the tonfa that took its place to serve as the extension of his arm and set forth towards the older shinobi with deadly speed, only a moment's hesitance wavering the chuunin's intent as he lifted his arm up ready for a downward strike and made the first connection. As anticipated, the answering swing of easily maneuvered counter hit impacted against the polished wood when the jounin saw through the tactic and pushed his arms on the move above his head, the jounin dropping low on his squat and holding down against the weight the tan body laid on him, the tonfa held flush against pale forearm. For only a moment they stood there, and then a thick, thunderous roll of silence pushed into every corner of the room surrounding them, making the walls of the barrier echo with a resounding high-pitched howl before a charging frizzle of chakra-infused lightning tore up from the spot the men stood, making them both curse and fling themselves away from each other into safer distance.

He could distantly hear Tsunade's voice call for him from behind the wailing of the barrier, but with Kakashi's own ears drumming like his head had been put inside a metal helmet and used as a musical instrument he figured that even though he couldn't pick up the words he could interpret the message based on the alarm in the woman's voice. The sudden surge of familiar chakra made his armed hand shoot up from where he was panting and leaning against his thighs, his gesture stopping their Hokage from finishing the seals to open up the barrier. All eyes were on him, and he could almost taste the salt of his own dry humor when he smiled at the fact that this could very well be a match he had lost from the beginning. Then, a gradual sting made itself known, and the jounin turned his gaze down to see his right hand, his skin unbroken but the nerves underneath definitely disturbed from his very own element lashing back. He gave it a testing shake, and sure enough, the spreading sensation vanished. Curious. His body was gearing up, the dragging exhaustion of his limbs equally matched with the tickling of his gut that had been absent for far too long in his opinion. If he dared to be honest, he was far from finished, and as he lifted his gradually hardening gaze to look at his equally breathless adversary, the silver-haired jounin surmised that neither was the chuunin. 

If anything, the way how the dark-skinned teacher looked at him, the man's eyes gazing at him in unabashed concern, yet in contrast the lean body pulled taut and ready for the next stage, told him all he needed.

"Hatake! Report!" Tsunade's voice cut short the thoughts forming in the masked man's mind.

Everyone present watched as the man pulled up to his true height, just for a moment, before releasing a long breath and rolling his shoulders back. "No recognizable change from earlier for the time being. Chakra levels are still low but manageable, no detected activity on the elemental base, even though it is never nice to deal with lightning like this. No changes in sex drive either," which gave him a slight pause, "...which should maybe count as the only noticeable change."

"Kakashi," Iruka barked from his side of the room, the chuunin barely staying still as his body was trembling to release the cumulating pressure he felt. Noticing it, the teacher gave a look at the medics observing him before the dark-haired man forced his lungs to cooperate against the onslaught of tremors prickling his skin. "Focus. For once, for both of us-" Yet no one had prepared for the choking sound that came out of the chuunin who then fell down on his knees, the teacher's face looking feverish and the darkly clothed chest heaving for air, his dark eyes wide with confusion and alarm.

Before he could even shift his weight to go to the younger man, Kakashi registered Tsunade's chakra flare with a ring of barriers releasing, and in a hush of haste Hare rushed in to check on the dark-skinned shinobi, the ANBU quickly seating the chuunin down before they pulled the man's shirt over the teacher's head and went through a series of hand seals that made the center of the broad chest glow in a faint blue script. Soon enough, the lines of ink vanished from sight and a wave of electricity, brilliant and far more powerful than what they had witnessed so far, pulsed across the man's skin, accompanied with a pained grunt that eased way for deeper breaths as the wave of lightning died down.

At that moment, as the agonized teacher looked over to the stunned jounin, Iruka's scowl was telling. "Don't you dare."

As soon as he took in the the urgency in the voice of the distressed teacher and the sudden change of the mood in the room, Kakashi fell silent. Soon enough, the gray eye narrowed in chilling realization. "Maa. This is interesting."

"I take it that you want to continue," Hare murmured and gave a snap of fingers at the chuunin they were tending to to get the man's attention. "Umino-san?"

Whether it was the medic's style of self-expression or his sheer resilience pulling strength from his temper, Iruka gave a determined glare at the elite in question and then put down his tonfas so that he could reach for his shirt. Even though he could not hide the wince, the instructor pulled the garment back on with a huff and then took his weapons in tow as he eased himself back up.

Deeming that the silently growling man would live, the ANBU gave a thumbs-up for their Hokage and then patted their former team captain on the shoulder on their way out back to the terrace. "It is safe to continue, Hokage-sama."

"Good," Tsunade nodded before she flitted through a series of hand seals, and as the walls of fuchsia glowed in blinding monochrome once more, the Hokage locked eyes with two of her best men, the notoriously bickering duo who instinctively tightened their holds on their given weapons as her palms made contact with the walls of pure energy and the woman stood to her regal height. Then, a passing frown ran across the painted lips. "Let's see if you can still surprise me."

In a blink, the pale legs carried the silver-haired jounin in striking position right in front of the academy instructor who saw it coming and pulled his tonfas above his head, the wood held straight flush against his forearms and bearing the brutal force coming from the contact the moment the ex-ANBU's hit came through, and as they now anticipated it, the loud bang of thunder echoed between the men. The dark eyes peered at the lone gray that narrowed against the flash of bright blue that made the elite to take a measured step back, and as if the pale assassin had finally found the ground he could stand on, the pale hands and legs shifted their gears and pushed themselves into the familiar dance the two men had grown accustomed to in the light gray house. The jounin chased the dark-skinned chuunin with each strike swung at the man, while equally the teacher kept his momentum unyielding and ready to block what came at his direction as he ran along the Sharingan user's movements, the tonfas twirling and snapping through the air with the unmistakable arcs of clear blue lightning whenever the dark-skinned man focused his strikes against the persistent jounin.

At a particularly loud clap of thunder, Kakashi halted to gather his breath a few feet away from the panting chuunin, his mind taking its given moment to categorize what he witnessed with everyone else as their match progressed.

Iruka's pulse was seemingly beating faster than what it usually did, the pulsing vein clearly visible on the tan throat, as well his reactions and skills were technically on par with the highly trained elite - and yet. The tan arms were already shaking from the over stimulation of the man's muscles, the lean thighs and shins spasming almost constantly as they had ran and jumped at each other - what was the most noticeable feature in the whole picture, however, was the dim blue ripple of air that had began to surround the tan man, the buzzing aura fluctuating chaotically and permeating the room with the unmistakable tang of electricity. Before he could further surmise what he knew others were already making notes about, the ex-ANBU found himself deflecting accurate hits that fell against his armed arms and looking at a pair of slanted, dark eyes over a piece of wood, the chuunin's strong offense pushing the jounin's body back and forcing them once more into the fray across the room, the men stumbling and turning amidst their strikes on top of the tarnished training grounds.

As she watched, Tsunade shielded her eyes against a new particularly bright flash of light, but the amber eyes were not taking their gaze away from the men she was keenly supervising for any possible dangers she should intervene. The looks of equal caution and concentration on the men's faces were enough to tell her that she wasn't the only one hoping that they would come out of this unorthodox experiment in one piece. Yet, curiously enough, there was a nagging feeling of something clearly lacking in the contact of the two battling men, and a swift glance towards Hare confirmed her suspicion. A sharp huff of breath fell from the painted lips, and the Hokage cast a sidelong look at Shizune whose steady presence was a welcome consistency in such an unclear situation. Tsunade didn't need the nod from the younger assistant to see what they both came to realize, and the older medic turned once more to look at the two shinobis, two men of different kind who were brought together under extremely strange circumstances, with a shadow of unease darkening the thoughtful eyes.

Iruka had not known he could feel this way when he fought with the jounin. The lethal danger put aside, the constant current of chakra he felt powering up his limbs and heart felt exhilarating, to say the least. His body screamed both in agony and elation as he pushed against the powerful strikes that most likely left bruises on his arms from the way they made the wood bite into his skin. The snaps of air fell in rhythm with his accelerated breathing, beads of sweat rolling over his muscles and drawing a heady scent of adrenaline from the air around him. The tonfa felt like an extension to his fists, elbows and arms, his very own being, the swiftly operated lengths of wood finding unguarded spots on the pale body that moved with him in the enclosed area, the thrum of hits counting his heavily pounding heartbeats.

His chest ached from the breaths he forced himself to take as he tried to hold his ground against the overpowered younger nin, the Sharingan user cursing his lacking chakra that had started to affect his muscles, his coordination turning more sluggish than what it had been, his body complaining against the unjust treatment it was given. The loud screech of lightning made his ears ring and a searing resonance from one rather nasty hit against his shielded forearm almost made his fingers numb, making the masked man grit his teeth in accumulating frustration as he extended his hurting arm, with a snap of his weapon finding its angle like the tanto blade he had once wielded, and slashed through the air with a wide sweep. And then, the moment when he felt something solid collide with his both legs, his viewpoint tilted drastically.

The way the wood turned and twisted in his relentless hold, the way it reverberated against his skin as it collided with its counterparts made him remember a night not so long ago that had ended one of their many brawls in a very different manner, the sudden memory releasing a flock of nervous butterflies all over Iruka's chest which sent the spiraling itch to sprawl all over his upper body with its unrepentant desire to make itself count. It was almost enough for him to let himself be hit with a sweeping strike from the jounin, the chuunin dropping low in a squat barely on time for the weapon to sail over his head before he leaned back on his hands and brushed the floor with his legs in a wide windmill kick, taking a drop of satisfaction from the way the jounin's knees folded with the unexpected hit. Yet the moment when he realized where the falling man was headed to, a part of his mind that had not yet lost itself to the thrill of battle, barked at his hands to relinquish their hold on the weapons while his instincts screamed in unison against what he was about to do.

As he suddenly felt the change in equilibrium, Kakashi had a moment's glimpse at the widened dark eyes that stared at him from the sweaty scarred face before his body fell victim to the gravity. The unexpected push upwards from the tan shinobi, however, made his fall halt in a confusing heap of blistering pain that compressed through his solar plexus on impact, followed by a raging flood of cacophonous chakra surge that washed through him, and -

The thickness of the heavy silence felt deafening to the shinobis who had stilled at the scene in the light gray house, three pairs of eyes staring with various degrees of surprise, relief and resignation at the two men who had stilled upon their finished match, the tan chuunin laying on his drenched back and staring dumbfounded at the jounin who was held at literal arm's length away with a pair of tan hands crossed over the center of his heaving chest, the gray eye looking down at the jounin's breathless mission partner in clear shock as drops of sweat hit the ground beneath them with soft patter.

Loathe to break the silence, Tsunade's voice cut through the men's prolonged staring contest. "Hatake, Umino. Clear the grounds."

Like a switch had been flipped, the gray eye widened and the jounin lifted himself hastily from pressing against the trembling hands, the elite almost dropping his set of weapons when his grip slackened and he scrambled on his shaking legs and wiped his brow dry from the sheen of moisture that had gathered. The moment he had moved, Iruka had snapped into action as well, the chuunin rolling onto his side instantly and pushing up from the floor before taking hastened steps farther away from the exhausted jounin, the faint buzz of an electric charge dying in the background at the increased distance.

As he gave a look at the visibly blushing chuunin and took note on the odd seriousness on the man's face, Kakashi almost missed when Hare knocked on the barrier behind him and then the tell-tale sound of hand seals activating permeated the air. He surmised he could be forgiven for twisting his body away from the ANBU medic when the armored hands went to guide him back outside the barrier, the masked medic lifting their hands in a clear sign of giving him space when the infamous Hound refused to step back. Instead, he decided to push for answers, no matter if his body was beats away from hitting the ground; something was amiss, and he would be damned not to address it. "Maa. Why didn't it-"

"It's the seal I put on Umino-san," Hare then spoke from the jounin's side before they sidestepped the man inside the room that held their two test subjects. "I put a restrain on most of his excessive chakra since it looked like his body has not yet found a way to adjust to it. The limit was approaching way too soon. This was only a preliminary test, Hatake. One of many."

As the ANBU spoke, Kakashi heard other commotion coming from his other side and turned to watch as Shizune helped Iruka to sit on the floor, the Hokage's assistant pulling off the chuunin's sweaty shirt and with a flash of chakra, exposing the intricate seal that the ANBU had hastily put on the man. With a few nudges, the dark-haired woman shifted the characters along the expanse of the trained body, her keen eyes checking for each reaction they could detect on their patient's face.

Soon enough, when hearing no quips coming from their retired superior who kept staring at the healing scene, the masked medic joined the pair on the floor and looked over Shizune's work.

When it seemed that the only sound in the room was Iruka's labored breathing, Tsunade stepped forth and fixed one of her most feared jounin's with a stern look. "Kakashi-"

The silence scattered hastily from his path as the jounin dropped the tonfas to the ground, the clatter of weapons cutting deep into the ambiance between the group of shinobis who watched him leave the training room, the following rattle of the kitchen door marking his exit.

"...Well," the mellow voice behind the Hare's ANBU mask started, "to be fair, Tsunade-sama did ask if he could still surprise us."

With a defeated groan, Iruka let himself fall back against the matted floor with a soft thud.

In the quietly setting dusk, Konoha began preparing for the coming nightfall, the street lights flickering to life and the neon signs blinking to spread their technicolor among the darkening hues of blue. The lights of village illuminated the landscape, dimming the brightness of the starry sky that slowly peeled out from the expanse of blue sky. The sounds of nocturnal fauna began their chirping and croaking, but a particular corner where there was a light-gray house was strangely void of all natural sounds, its walls standing in a lull of silence completely different in its nature than its kin. Amidst it, there sat a masked jounin on a wide terrace surrounded by a high fence, peering up at the darkening sky, his posture slack and deceivingly unresponsive to the shifts of ambiance that happened around him. A small cup of cold coffee sat in the pale hands, the pensive man not making an effort in reacting to it anytime soon.

Beside him, there sat a masked ANBU, who idly nurtured a cup of steaming tea in their armored hands.

Behind them both, there sat a lone chuunin, a man with precise hands as he wrote down the day's notes in a nondescript black book, his focus so unwavering that one could almost miss the hum of the rippling barrier that cut him off from the rest of the house, the light above his dark-haired head flickering from time to time when a crackling buzz snapped through the air.

"Spending my night like this was not what I had in mind for today," the ANBU slowly murmured next to the quiet jounin, their ears prickling with the lack of sound coming from the man they spoke to.

"You tell me," the low drawl replied after a sigh of tense silence, and without granting the other with his full attention, the masked jounin turned the small cup in his hands.

"We could not risk your health head-on, you do understand that," the ANBU offered, wondering about their earnest voice for a moment before shrugging it off. "It was good to see you both pull through. Now we have something we can actually work with. You even gave us more to think about for the time being. Should not be surprising, though, to anyone who has worked with you."

He couldn't help but scowl at the ANBU's words, and as he did, Kakashi was darkly pleased to notice the tension taking over the ANBU's presence next to him when his spiked intent spoke for itself.

The following silent breath beneath the mask was small, almost nonexistent, yet it was screaming at them both. "...Very well. Point taken." They sat there for a few more beats, but after realizing that they would not get anything else from their former captain based on the silent treatment the man had been giving to everyone after they had calmed down the storm in the kitchen earlier, the ANBU set down their cup of tea and rose up from their seat. "I'm going for a stroll. I suggest that you take a leaf out of your own book for tonight," they said and walked the steps down to the yard, their painted porcelain mask peering up at the starry sky above. "You might learn a thing or two yourself, senpai." With that, a gust of wind swept across the small backyard, and after a swirl of leaves, the masked medic had left the premises, leaving only his silent colleague and a chilling cup of untouched tea behind.

With the ANBU gone, the pale hands set down the ruined coffee and rubbed over the masked face, all the way into the unruly mass of silver hair before pressing back against the mismatched eyes. As much as it did still the dark waters within his mind, it didn't stop his keen ears from picking up the silent footsteps stopping at a distance behind his back.

"...May I sit with you?" The hesitant voice was enough to tell the look the jounin could envision on the chuunin's scarred face.

Perhaps that was why he did not outright decline the request. It didn't mean he would make it easy for the man. "You found a way through that barrier?"

The glare that hit the sulking jounin's back carried a reminder for their everyday interaction before the mission. Seeing the shrug of the jounin's broad shoulders, the chuunin took it for what it was and gingerly crossed his feet as he sat down by the silently humming wall of energy before he looked up past the jounin's still figure at the dark blue indigo which turned purple from his viewpoint, remembering a particular pair of bright blue eyes for a fleeting second. Then, as was the nature of responsibilities, the teacher let himself settle with the facts. "I should have noticed it all earlier."

"You should have. Then again, I should have too," Kakashi huffed and ruffled his hair before discarding an offending speck of dust from his knee while he kept his back turned to the man behind him. "Part of me thinks it was all some sort of punishment for not meeting the standards for this mission."

"They have every right to be angry at us, considering how things have gone so far," Iruka stated, as if the chuunin had thought the same. "We haven't exactly been shining with our performance."

"...You could say that again," the jounin muttered and cast a narrowed glance at the man he spoke to over his shoulder.

"Don't give me that look," the teacher snapped back, and wasn't that surprised to find his words forming an edge as he continued. "These are the risks we both should have thought about, but we didn't, and now the reality of this situation is not something that I can take lightly, nor can you. I thought you'd see it like I do, considering the options we have."

"I thought you weren't the type who likes to choose painful options," Kakashi drawled in challenging monotone, the strict tone of the chuunin's voice picking on his remaining temper.

"Had I known that my body plotted to take your shit as a hostage just so it could test if we broke it I would have given you a clearer heads-up, bastard," Iruka shouted before cursing himself when a stray frizzle of electricity bit into his shoulder, only barely missing the look of upset that passed over the older man's masked face. It was, however unnerving, enough for him to collect his calm. "..Look. Had we known then what we know now, I would not have played the way how it all went down. Whatever happens tomorrow is something that none of us know, but I know that -", just like before, the man caught himself before his next words, the dark eyes turning to look at anywhere else than the jounin who Iruka could sense turning on his seat, the man directing his attention straight at him.

The bemused silence pressed against the chuunin's heating skin for a moment that felt like a small eternity before a simple question banished the peace of the nightfall from around the two men when Kakashi spoke: "Are you suggesting that we continue the mission? I thought you were initially against it." Yet how the man looked at Kakashi when he finally turned to face the jounin, the slanted eyes almost unguarded with the swirl of conflicting emotions the Sharingan user could see in them, made the man of multiple masks halt in his thoughts.

Where was the cup of tea when he needed it the most, the teacher found himself wondering. Staring at the ANBU's forlornly sitting drink was not helping.

For a couple of times he began and stopped, only to end up wondering how his most feared talent could betray him now, as his voice wavered over the tumble of words that fell from his mouth. "I...when you were passed out, Tsunade-sama gave me a choice to either comply with this arrangement or to stop the mission completely, and I...I did not want that. Not like this." As soon as he had said it, a flush crept over his high cheeks, the teacher cursing his blushing face not for the first time during his life. To lessen the heat, the man coughed and scratched his scarred nose, trying to find his way back on the track. "Then that ANBU medic sat down with me after Hokage-sama went to check on you, and, uh," for kami's sake his face would not stop burning until the next morning if he kept this up, "they gave me some, uh, points to think about."

No matter how seriously deep in shit they were right then, the jounin could not resist the smirk that crept on his masked face. "...Maa, you do know they take most of their interrogation tactics from Icha Icha, right?" The sight of the chuunin almost swallowing his tongue made a rough bark of laughter bubble out of Kakashi's throat, it taking no time in evolving into full-blown guffaws.

"It's not that funny you damn pervert," Iruka growled, but there was not mistaking the pull on his mouth that resisted his attempt to scowl at the howling jounin who clearly had their nerves pulled tight for a bit too long over the past few hours. As the rumbling laughter died down, the dark-haired teacher let his eyes take in the sight of the older man wiping the mismatched eyes clear, and as he had come to admit, the softening of his own grin was a welcomed feeling. "...Feeling better?"

"I guess I needed that," Kakashi sniffed and rubbed the gathered moisture from his lashes before fixing a smiling look at the man next to him.

"Glad I could be of assistance," Iruka smirked back with the tell-tale signs of a seasoned mission desk worker, which, given the day they had had, was a welcome reminder for them both of the world outside the house they were tied to for the moment. "It would have been nice if they had covered the part of conversing with jounin in the chuunin training. At least my medicine costs would have benefitted from that."

"I think you should first take a look at who you're speaking to before thinking that you'd be getting any less headaches," the jounin taunted with a smooth lilt in his low voice, the uncharacteristic display of character making the chuunin dissolve into his own fit of laughter. Yet, as he looked at the laughing man and took in the slopes of the strong shoulders and the planes of the trained chest, the jounin found himself swallowing heavily. He then coughed, and damn all artificial lightning he was sure the quieted man could see the red creeping over his mask's edge even through the barrier.

As things were, Iruka knew a pass of turn when he fell into one. "...Saa, you certainly got that point across. Even before this mission," he calmly spoke, even though he could feel his gut twist in equal parts of terror and excitement while he gave a meek smile and averted his gaze from the jounin. He then continued to wonder why he felt like throwing the innocent cup of abandoned tea beyond the high fence wall, the ANBU's treatment of his favorite beverage not putting any new points in his books for the medical corps elite. "I should drink something."

"Someone's showing new sides of himself today," Kakashi lightly commented, if only to banish the creep of flush from taking over his neck and back when he let his eye travel over the nape of the man's neck. Though the moment when the chuunin turned back to him, the dark eyes unreadable even when framed with such a notable blush almost matching his own, the jounin held that thought.

His hands stayed lax on his lap, and yet he knew instantly when the buzz of restless energy began to course over him. "...Am I?"

The stillness of the heavy silence enveloped them, and then, like the shadow he had been trained to be, the pale, masked jounin picked up from where his training ended and his humanity began, and let his lone, gray eye stay on the man who looked back at him. "Well, the other possibility is that I had not looked properly underneath the underneath."

Iruka raised an eyebrow as he held the gaze from the narrow gray eye while trying to resist the insistent twitching on his lips at what he was hearing. "Pick a leaf out of your own book, was it?"

"I advise you not to take the ANBU medics too seriously, sensei," Kakashi murmured while he made a cautious scoot closer to the man who had started to steer away from what the jounin suspected they should both give a more proper look at, given the past few hours. The moment when the chuunin noticed his movement, however, the way the man's eyes locked with his told of a different discussion topic that was also in dire need for closer inspection. "Although, if my memory serves me right," he then said as he leaned in closer to the barrier which rippled in reaction to his change of mood, him taking note on the way the dark-skinned man swallowed as the chuunin seemed to have lost his track of thought at his closing proximity, "we do have something we could pick up from."

The moment he saw how close the jounin was leaning towards him, Iruka felt his pulse quicken with an increased buzz traveling through his core, along with his hitching breath. As he glanced at the masked mouth over the man's words, focusing on the almost noticeable pair of lips that pulled in a seductive smirk underneath the dark fabric when the low bass caressed his ears, he faintly paid attention to how his own body slowly shifted to hover only a couple of inches away from the twirling shades of fuchsia, his own lips moving in imitation to the jounin's expression as his voice dropped several octaves down. "I won't be held responsible for your reckless ideas."

"As much as I'd like to see how well you copied my hand seals to dispel that barrier, I suggest you pick up your sleep before anything else, senpai" Hare's mellow voice dashed through the thickening tension and the ANBU medic watched as the two nins froze on the spot like nervous fauna in the crossfire. "Furthermore," they then continued as the addressed pair of men hastily put some distance between each other and fixed them with a variety of glares, "Umino-san should also attempt to rest as much as possible, since tomorrow will be a strenuous day for all of us. Besides, I like my nights quiet when I'm on the job."

The quip was well-aimed, that they knew for sure, but the mark it hit was rather unexpected. The moment when they took a step towards the terrace, their former senpai stood up, picked up his coffee cup and stomped to the kitchen, as the chuunin sensei wasted no time to follow the older man's cue and stood to take a firm hold onto the training room's double doors that were on his side of the barrier and, after giving the medic a well-practiced look of disapproval, pulled them shut with a resounding slam. Before they knew what was happening, a mimicking rattle came from the kitchen door as it clacked shut, the sound of footsteps fading into the hallways of the small house. There they stood, watching the light gray house fall silent like a trapped mausoleum awaiting for the foolhardy adventurers, the neon lights of the village around them flickering on the surface of their white porcelain mask, and Hare took in a light breath that they directed above to the night sky.

"Well, that was embarrassing," Iruka muttered as he plopped onto his futon that had again been relocated to the training room and cast a fleeting look at the other man who had growled all the way into their bedroom.

"Wait until you get to know them better," Kakashi huffed and settled on his own bed with a venomous glare directed at the new set of linen that sat on the other side of their sleeping quarters, the ANBU's bed yet untouched. Then, knowing that the barrier between him and the teacher was not hiding his hesitance, he continued. "Are you alright?"

"I'll live, if that's what you're wondering," the chuunin quipped dryly before he caught onto the darker meaning of that sentence, and cleared his throat. "...I guess I am. Let's hope that I won't set anything on fire in my sleep."

"Maa, I'm sure your other element would be handy if that happened," Kakashi replied back, and as he turned on his back to stare at the dark ceiling above, he was glad to hear a muffled snort come from the younger man's direction, the noise easing the tension in his body and mind.

"That is a good point," Iruka amended and let his tired gaze find the man who lied on bed behind the barrier, the lines of worry on his tired face smoothening as shadows of sleep ran their fingers against his temples, the image of the jounin the last thing that guided him to nothingness. "...I'll see you in the morning, Kakashi."

At the tone he could hear in the man's whispered words, Kakashi let a small smile pass his lips before answering, the gray eye closing against the falling darkness that slowly enveloped his surroundings. "...Sleep well, Iruka." As he let himself drift off to weightless rest, the jounin's last senses picked up an appearance of a presence, knowing well who it belonged to. Despite that, knowing what he knew, the ex-ANBU let his senpai take the stage and handle the grueling task that surely awaited them for the night as their keeper, the jounin not envying their role.

True to their way of ninja, Hare stood in the shadows, them having heard the hushed snippet of conversation before they made themself known and stepped into the bedroom where one of their charges was dropping out of consciousness. Like the soundless ghost they had been trained to be, the ANBU fluffed their pillow, spread their duvet on their futon, and checked their sealed water flask next to the bed. Then they laid down, their senses alert and mind ticking with the events from the past hours, since they knew the weights of the two lives they had been bestowed with.

A low hum of steady chakra was all that carried over all rooms in the light gray house as its quiet residents set to face the evident dawn, and what will be exposed by the harsh morning light.

Chapter Text

The minutes ticked towards the new day when sunlight slowly climbed over the horizon, casting a breezy smile towards the landscape that once again was revealed to the gentle giant, who then brushed a flurry of flocking sunbeams afloat from their glowing limbs. The minuscule sparkles spread their wings and dove down in a silent formation through the forests, fields and animal nests, chasing the lingering shadows in a game of eternal tag before they finally arrived at the imposing gates of painted wood that stood in a lull of slumber, them shielding the awakening village behind them. Not deterred, the flock of light flipped their angle and rushed up and over the wooden barriers, twirling and gliding in glee as their cheerful chase continued, not many of them paying mind to the small light gray house that was on their path, the nondescript building blurring into the background of roof tiles, clotheslines and high fences.

As the glowing giant came knocking, the shinobi guards who arrived for their early shifts stretched their backs, rolled their shoulders and flexed their fingers as they saluted the drowsy night shift and took their positions at the gates. Echoes of commands rang in the brisk air, followed by a groan of gogs and squeaks of hinges as the monstrous structures of men were once again set into motion, the gates pushing open to let the morning enter the hidden village of Konoha.

They observed the rising sounds of evident morning, their ears picking up the crunching gravel and the rattles of shop doors, and Hare concluded that there were probably worse ways to start the day than slouching on a futon and staring at two sleeping patients who had yet to sense the morning dew. The night had been uneventful, but that relief was cut short in their disillusioned mind. An armored hand lifted the painted mask one last time and the ANBU emptied their water flask with the last gulps before they made a decision to start the day proper. Silently, the assassin slunk into the small kitchen, the lurking night crawlers nipping their heels as the armored hands filled the empty flask before re-sealing and sending it back to a storage scroll which found its place in the hip pouch. Then the armored fingers pulled open kitchen door, the shuffle of worn wood in its rail welcoming in the impatient rush of light that sent a flood of frenzy amid the critters of sleep. Not minding the game of light and shadow that occurred by their feet, the ANBU measured the grounds of coffee, filled the tank and clicked the appliance on. Then they stepped onto the terrace, their hidden eyes squinting slightly against the brightness of the clear sky, the noises of their beloved village overwhelming the medic's senses for a minute before they let out a cleansing breath.

The roll and clack of the training room doors behind their back was expected. "Morning, ANBU-san."

"Umino-san," Hare spoke and turned to face the younger nin who had appeared in the doorway. "Please, call me Hare. Slept well?"

The yawn that broke out on the scarred face was a clear answer. "Slept. Not so well." Knocked out would hit closer in Iruka's opinion as he brushed his hands through his mess of dark hair before taming it into a bushy ponytail, which, given the sleepy drag of his limbs, ended up slightly drooped as well despite his efforts. The man had already put on a new set of training clothes like any other shinobi in training, but to the sensitive nose of medic, he was also in a dire need for a shower. "Tea, Hare-san?"

"I need my coffee in the morning," Hare replied but added after a moment's thought: "Thank you for the offer. Will keep it in mind."

"I'm sure you will," the scarred chuunin stated, more to himself than anyone else, before casting a look over his shoulder towards the dark bedroom where the third member of their newly formed team was stirring up. "Hopefully you made enough for two."

A light chuckle escaped beneath the porcelain mask as the elite medic heard the jab. "I may be daring but even I know when to tempt danger, Umino-san." Speaking of, they also settled to look at the target of their discussion as a tuft of silver hair moved, followed by a sharp sniff and a cough to alert everyone else around him when the feared Copy-nin opened his senses to face the new dawn. With nothing else coming from either of the men, the medic gave a hum and then gestured towards a lonely water boiler that sat next to the chuunin's bed. "Do you need a refill?"

That seemed to kick the man's mind back on the roll. "Oh, uh," the chuunin cleared his throat and then went to bring the boiler, the tan hands setting it down next to the humming barrier before armored hands went over the seals and dispelled the barrier to pick up the household item before resetting it.

"Be right back," Hare said with a light smile to their words, and with that, the happily humming ANBU medic went back to the kitchen.

While they both listened to the domestic puttering of the elite killer in their shared kitchen, Iruka turned back to look at the masked jounin who was still lounging on his futon, the pale arms crossed underneath the pillow that had been propped underneath the masked jaw when the man had turned onto his stomach. The Sharingan user answered the teacher's look with a small tilt of his head, his shock of silver hair still trying to find its look of chaos for the day. "...Morning."

Despite the faint flush of heat that rose to his cheeks from the rough voice of the other man accompanied with how the sheets bunched around the pale body, Iruka nodded back and then offered a brief smile at the reclining jounin. "Morning. How was your night?"

The low bass rumbled in thought before the lone gray eye settled for a pensive look over the pillow. "Marginally better. You?"

"Have had better," the academy instructor answered and gave his nose a passing rub, his keen ears picking up the footsteps of the returning medic. "But not setting anything off could count as a small victory," he offered with a passing grin before giving his attention to the ANBU who set down the water boiler on the terrace floor and opened up the barrier for him to pick it back. A brief nod of thanks was exchanged between the nins before the tea-deprived chuunin set to make himself a much needed cup for the day.

As the younger man decided to direct his focus on his morning steep for the time being rather than pay attention to the two elites who had a brief staring contest over the tattered tatami mats, Hare snorted at the deeply suspicious look they got from their senpai. "I'm a medic, Hatake. This should not surprise you."

"Maa," Kakashi drawled as he eased himself to sit up, the jounin gritting his masked teeth against the sharp jab of pain that shot through his abused muscles, him fully aware of how his former teammate examined his every move. "Then I suppose it should be safe to drink the coffee you made." Considering that his thighs were definitely opposing the idea of standing up while the rest of his body was adding a decade to his age with everything that ached, the masked genius spent a moment to wonder if it would be wise for him to even attempt to stand up with an audience. Before it could happen, he detected movement from the corridor, and braced himself for the other's company as the other ANBU entered the bedroom and squatted down in front of him. The change of mood in the medic's body language was telling when they spent a minute observing his bruised body. Before Hare could speak, however, the pale jounin cast a fleeting glance at the chuunin fussing with his futon in the training room before giving the medical professional a warning look. He was glad that the other nin took the hint and gave him space.

Carefully, the pale man stood up under the ANBU's watchful eyes, the faint cracks of joints and pulls of bruised muscles undoubtedly registered by the medical professional who most likely added everything to their mental binder concerning their former captain. On the other hand, the silent companionship from the other member of the Black Ops did ease the nervousness he felt when he detected another gaze that had also tuned in to follow his agonizingly slow rise. As he righted himself to his actual height, before relaxing his spine to a more familiar slouch, Kakashi gingerly rolled his shoulders and turned to nod at the quietly observing medic. Content with what they saw, if only slightly miffed at the stunt, the medic nodded in turn and returned to their morning coffee while letting their senpai deal with the aftermath of the unnecessary performance.

"Are you alright, Kakashi?" Iruka's voice carried over the silence as he stood up with his tea to look at the quiet man. When the jounin turned his masked face towards him, the darkly clothed body following suit after it, the teacher knew he was deliberately given a view on how the man favored his left leg and held his right hand a bit more gingerly than usual. Alas, knowing that did not ease the tightening knot of worry in his gut.

"Mostly, I think," the jounin started, and then gave a passing smile with his mismatched eyes. "You gave as good as you got yesterday, it seems."

"I think we all know how it went," the dark-haired teacher frowned over his drink and took a few steps closer to the masked man before he was stopped by the warning hum from the barrier. That, however, didn't stop his mouth from continuing, nor his free hand from gesturing towards the older nin's new injuries. "I'm sure they'll let you rest today if you need to."

"Maa. I've had it worse," Kakashi drawled and lifted an eyebrow at the other man's worry.

"Spare me," Iruka scoffed before a passing fizz of electricity nipped at his tongue. Luckily, a sip from the tea made the sensations tone down, and the teacher gave himself a moment before he spoke once more, not caring if the look on his face matched the tone of his admonishing voice for a change.  "In case you've forgotten, I was there when we had our last match, so don't think that I couldn't guess what was going in your head. No one was forcing me to continue with the match, the same with you. You could have called it at any point, and I was well aware that things did not add up the way they had until that point. I did not like it any more than you did, but it was necessary, just like Hare said." Yet, when his brain caught up with his temper, he gave a glare at the half empty cup he held in his hand, the leaf green sencha sitting calmly in its frail vessel with no sympathy given to his inner turmoil.

The masked jaw tightened for a fleeting second and the silence around the jounin revealed its teeth, only to dissipate into a long sigh when the man scratched his neck and turned a bit away from the chuunin who blinked at the sight he was presented with. "...Fair enough."

As if he was hoping more patience from the Gods of Shinobi to deal with the conversation, Iruka rolled his eyes briefly upwards before looking back at the lanky man. "We could request to have Gai-san here. He's a Gate expert-"

"No," the single word cut sharper than any of his kunais, but Kakashi was more surprised about the weight he put on it. Since the look on the tan shinobi's face was equal parts of surprise as well confusion at his definite decline, he figured that he should elaborate. "I have nothing against Gai, he's an excellent Gate user. But I have also worked with him long enough to know just how dangerous the Eight Inner Gates can be, and you know me well enough to know that I won't put my comrades in danger in order to spare myself from trouble. Listen," he then quickly added as soon as he noticed that the younger man was about to protest: "I am well aware of my own limits, but I also know my responsibilities as the team captain. Furthermore, as you so many times have pointed out, I am trained for this sort of thing, so I'd rather be the one to take the hits and keep you safe. If you let me."

A loud snap of electricity was the only sound that came from the other room as the two men observed each other. The look on the teacher's face, an odd mixture of cautious wonder, may have been something that Kakashi could have spent a longer moment to memorize for the days to come, if he himself wasn't so busy cursing the heat he could feel gathering on his masked face.

Then, a tan set of fingers pinched the bridge of the brightly blushing, scarred nose while the chuunin's dark eyebrows pulled down into an exasperated frown. "Get your coffee before Hare does something to it."

Being reminded of the danger his morning brew was facing was enough for him to snap out of the jittering nerves and leave the bedroom in order to save his caffeine from the clutches of his sadistic colleague. Yet, as he moved past the doorway to the corridor, Kakashi could not resist glancing over his shoulder at the younger man. What he saw, from the way the chuunin held a hand over his darkly blushing cheeks; from the way the dark, slanted eyes looked inwards as the intelligent man had seemingly lost himself in thought, with the lone tea cup still gently held in his other hand, was distracting enough for him to bump into the medic who stood hidden behind the corner with their coffee.

"I called for others to come and install the new doors, senpai," Hare offered calmly as if listening in on private conversations was the furthest thing in their mind. "You might want to freshen up before they arrive."

If Kakashi was startled to find his senpai eavesdropping on them, the jounin did not care if it showed when he passed the nosy elite, nor did he let his attention wander to the sounds of the other two nins talking and the barrier shifting in place behind his back when Iruka was let into their shared toilet to finish his morning routines. There was a cup of coffee calling his name, a meddling medic who took no prisoners, a charge of chakra in his body ready to be unleashed, and a barrier sitting between him and the man he couldn't decide whether to kiss or curse. He figured he had enough on his plate for the day.

It had not taken long until an ANBU squad had made their arrival with a new set of bathroom doors, the team of three making swift work in repairing the damaged structures and installing the panels according to Hare's instructions. Iruka had been ushered out to the yard, along with a few muttered protests from the chuunin much to everyone's amusement when the teacher had been put into a literal personal barrier bubble, from where he proceeded to glare daggers at the medic who supervised the work being done. Hare insisted upon work safety, but did not elaborate if it was because of the chuunin's current personal odour or him posing an actual lethal danger to others. Kakashi was unhelpfully suggesting that it was both.

Once the doors had been installed there was no need to persuade either men to wash up properly before breakfast, with Hare keeping close watch on the turns they took.

When the medic dug out a fresh set of linens for both men before unceremoniously stripping their used bedsheets, inspecting them and then sealing them up in a scroll that perished in flames, both Iruka and Kakashi came to a silent agreement that ANBU medics were a group of people who were not to be messed with. Also the less they thought about what the medic was able to deduce from their pillowcases and sheets the easier it was for them to look at the mask in the eye holes without getting too self-conscious about the conditions the beds had deteriorated into in the past few days.

To Kakashi's shock, even Iruka decided not to comment about the medic touching his futon without his permission, although the pointed stare thrown at the ANBU's back by the vividly blushing man was telling.

Nevertheless, the three shinobis were able to conduct somewhat amiable morning preparations for the brand new day in the light-gray house, none of them paying mind to the anticipation that made the silence tense up between them whenever there was a lull in the conversation. The sun carved its path slowly over the sky above them, it not minding the mere mortals with their small world basking under its growing warmth.

Finally, as they had been expected, Tsunade and Shizune bamphed onto the terrace in the middle of the small breakfast that Kakashi had set out for himself and Hare while Iruka was served his portion in the training room. The moment when their superior commander had given a fleeting look at the remaining coffee in their cups, Hare had taken it upon themself to get a fresh pot while their leader sat down for updates regarding the past night. Kakashi and Iruka could agree with them, for they would have done the same, considering the dark rings they saw under their superior's eyes and the grim look on Shizune's face.

"Report," Tsunade said and set to lean against the terrace wall, her tired face directed at the rising sun.

"No activity during last night, Hokage-sama," Kakashi responded without waiting for others, since they all knew whom the Hokage had directed her words at. "Based on Hare's input, Iruka's elements did not act up, nor do my chakra reserves show any remarkable changes. I do feel better, though, so I have gotten something back."

A thoughtful hum filled the space between them as their leader mulled over the situation. "Morning of good news," the blonde woman surmised with a twist of her mouth, "but considering the silence coming from your side, Iruka, it would be foolish to assume that to be all."

"I do feel slightly better than yesterday, Hokage-sama," Iruka considered with a tilt of his head, as if the man tried to listen to what his body was up to. "But I don't know how much of that is due to the new seal that was put on me. If we dispel the seal and have a new match it will most likely end up like yesterday. Maybe worse even."

"Considering that it is precisely what we need to do then I suggest to prepare yourself for it, sensei," Tsunade voiced out, followed by a thankful nod when she received her coffee from Hare who also gave a cup to Shizune before joining their small meeting. After taking a small sip of the brewed drink, the Hokage turned to look at the misbehaving pair of mayhem who were the reason for her failed sleep. "Based on what we were able to garner from yesterday's trial, it looks that we have to let the Gates open properly. Otherwise we're just prolonging this," she said with a vague gesture circling the air between them all, "and I am not that curious to see where that would lead us if it meant endangering two of my shinobis any more than necessary. Although I'd prefer less tantrums today."

Kakashi gave his superior a withering glare but decided to hold his tongue, since he had no desire to repeat last evening's quarrel that had happened in the kitchen between him and the Hokage. He wasn't sure how much others had heard when he had been very clear with his opinion on how the match had went, but Iruka's earlier words were hinting that perhaps enough. He glanced over at the quiet teacher and wasn't surprised to see the man look straight back at him, the chuunin holding his gaze before averting it back to their breakfast. "Maa. I have a hunch that this is pointed at me."

Tsunade took her time finishing the coffee. Then, the amber eyes turned to stare down the thorn on her side. "It wouldn't do to end up dead just because you had trouble in accepting your position - which, may I remind you, has almost happened already. You're a fine shinobi, one of the finest, so it's about time you start catching up to your duties."

"Tsunade-sama-," both Shizune and Iruka began over her scolding words, but we're silenced by the fierce frown crossing over the woman's fair brow.

"Don't test me," the leading medic spoke evenly, yet everyone could sense the dangerous veil of chakra that draped upon her shoulders. "This is a medical mission, not a meditation retreat. Furthermore I still have a village to run, a Jinchuuriki to keep track on, and a new generation of medics who need to be trained properly for whatever will happen in the future once the loud kid gets back from his trips. I need Hare elsewhere." She then crossed her arms and pierced Kakashi with a strict look, only mildly pleased at how the man's apathetic bored gaze sobered up a little. "How's your eye today, Hatake?"

The jounin hummed and then cleared his throat. "I can use Sharingan if there's any need for it, but only for a moment."

Tsunade nodded and then glanced at the dark-haired chuunin, not surprised by the worried thinning of the man's mouth at the jounin's answer. "Then no stupid stunts, either of you. There are people who need you alive." With that, she stood up and walked down onto the yard, her growing presence pressing through the hush of quiet that fell over the small group of nins who were left staring at her back. "I'm willing to bet that this will take a few more days with this pace," Tsunade said with no particular audience in mind as she let her eyes sweep over the high fence. The chewing and munching behind her slowed down when her subordinates took her words in, and if she could hear their thoughts, she admitted she would most likely share some of them. "Nevertheless, if we play it smart, it will only remain as days rather than weeks. We will have only one match per day, to avoid any further accidents. So eat up and prepare for the match in thirty minutes."

No matter their personal differences, the quartet answered like the professionals they were expected to be: "Yes, Hokage-sama."

As her subordinates set things into motion behind her back, Tsunade lifted her eyes towards the expanse of clear blue sky, it stretching over her village and carrying beyond the world of the shinobi. The amber eyes closed against the warm sunlight, and the Konoha's fierce leading medic, one of the Legendary Sannins, did something she rarely had time to indulge herself with nowadays: one by one, she banished the circling thoughts in her mind, letting the rustle of leaves take their place, and then, gradually, the sounds of rustling foliage faded into nothingness, with only her own breathing carrying calmly through the silence.

She had learned not to assume.

But to hope, that was another thing completely.

She set her wages.

The anticipation was palpable as they observed the scene, three medics watching over one chuunin who stood in the spacious room and looked calmly at another shinobi through a transparent wall between them. Hare had taken their usual spot on the terrace, their masked person accompanying their former captain who stood ready beside them; both ANBUs, past and present, patiently waiting for their leader's move. They both glanced over at their Hokage and her aide who stood by the bedroom doors.

They all watched as Shizune walked over to the tan chuunin who held his set of tonfas ready, the man staying put as the black-haired medic stepped over to him and went through the hand seals to connect with the seal on his skin. The glow of blue was striking in the dimness of the room, the swirls of ink forming in the air for all of them to see. With that, Shizune turned to look at her commander, Tsunade's nod giving her all she needed to proceed, but only after giving an encouraging smile at her concerned patient.

"Are you ready, Iruka-san?" she asked quietly. The dark-haired man looked at her, heavy seriousness visible in the slanted eyes, but then the chuunin swallowed and nodded his consent. Knowing what they were asking from him, Shizune could empathize with the man's uncharacteristic silence. "You're not a Gate user, sensei, but I know you're an educated man, so I won't offer any lies to put you at ease. I merely ask you to trust that we'll pull you through." A huff of breath, almost inaudible, left the humored teacher at those words, as they both knew how much that was true.

Then, with a clear ring like a silver bell, the seal deactivated.

For a moment, nothing indicated that something had changed. But then, a rush of charging chakra cracked through the air and Iruka had to resist his body from folding in half as it hit him with the force of a thundering tidal wave. Distantly he could feel Shizune's hands on him, her fingers forming seals that filtered the flow and compressed it down, slowing its course as his limbs and nerves were overwhelmed to the very limit, the foreign chakra and lightning element cracking open something within his body with vicious precision and releasing thousand screeching birds into his nervous system. Only barely, he could keep himself from crying out in pain as he rode the surge, his lungs stuttering and heart hammering out of his chest, his mouth gasping for breath and the veins on his temples feeling like bursting. Yet, just as sudden as it had washed over him, the agony faded with one last chirp, and all that was left was the sound of his own pained heaving.

His eyes shot open and were greeted with a view of Shizune who took a firm hold onto his head and gazed steadily into his eyes, the medic's mouth murmuring a flurry of soothing words that grasped his muddled mind and pressed the rising panic down, like a gentle sphere of steel encompassing his very psyche into a bubble of peace. The jabs of electricity danced on his skin while his heart palpated feverishly inside his chest, but he could feel his feet grounding against the tatami mats, his body finding its gravity. Then his head was let go and his sharpened focus shot straight past Shizune at the masked jounin standing behind a barrier, the particular pale man holding his defensive stance and his grip on the weapons ready while waiting patiently; still, how the gray eye widened for a fraction told him that not everything was as it seemed. Based on that information, the teacher distantly understood that it was only a matter of when his conscious brain would catch up with what his body was, at that moment, going through.

Part of him wasn't sure if he wanted to be fully aware for whatever sort of pain awaited him.

"Umino," Tsunade's voice suddenly echoed way closer to his ears than he had anticipated, and his head snapped up with an immediate bite to his neck muscles as he looked at his Hokage and her aide who had again taken the position on their side of the barrier when he had not paid attention. The woman looked at him, merely cataloguing what she was presented with. Then she moved her gaze towards the other end of the room, and the chuunin followed her lead.

The pale, masked jounin looked at him steadily from the other side of the barrier. He stood there, leaving no openings in his armed posture, the strong hands held by the man's sides and tonfas kept close to the body; and yet, there was an air of hesitance in the way the man had tilted his head, already presenting his closed Sharingan to his opponent.

Nothing else was offered by the elite for him to see, but the teacher focused on that one important detail, the seemingly passing reminder of who stood before him, and Iruka surmised that whatever words were left unsaid between them, he didn't need it. With that realization, the tan fingers held firmer on the tonfas, only marginally reminding him of his whereabouts when his legs shifted their weight from the heels to the balls of his feet; when his arms pulled back and lifted the weapons by his sides; when his shoulders set back and his head found its place in line with his spine, the hairs on his neck rising with a low hum of accumulating chakra.

They could always come back to the words. What he right then needed was something completely different.

He needed an outlet.

"Hatake," Hare's mellow voice carried over to Kakashi who kept his eye on the chuunin whose chakra had started to swirl in blue aura around the man, the bushy ponytail whipping in the air with snaps of electricity that kept adding up, the gathering storm drawing its strength from the temperamental man whose very being was transforming into something very different than usual. "He is very close to opening the Third Gate. Considering that he lectures actively about the techniques that shinobis use, there is a chance that he will reflexively attempt to use either Front or Hidden Lotus."

The former Hound knew when he was given permission to back down. He also knew how their reality offered good options sparingly. "..Maa," he drawled, and there was no fooling the giddy tickles he felt in his gut as Iruka stared straight through his masked faux-smile: "I think I'm a bit late to decline."

He did not look at his Hokage to check if the sudden annoyed flare of chakra came from her, but the words that were called at him were, ultimately, enough for him to understand what Tsunade wanted him to know. "No unnecessary risks, brat. Remember your limits."

Kakashi answered her words with a nod and then, as he succumbed to the thrill of a beginning battle, let go of unnecessary thoughts. "When you're ready, Hokage-sama."

By his reply, both Hare and Shizune readied themselves, and Tsunade gave a final look at the entourage present, before lifting her hands and flitting through a series of seals. As the sound of chakra connecting with jutsu hit the silence, nobody paid attention to how the barrier rang like brass bowl as it flickered to let the jounin enter the space, when the instant rush of movement caught everyone's attention and the following sharp bark of wood hitting wood echoed in the center of the training room where there suddenly stood two very different men, the feared Bingo Book killer and Konoha's notorious mission room tyrant.

Once more, they stood still over their crossed weapons, dark brown eyes staring down at a lone gray eye that peered over a black mask, the jounin shielding his head with a lifted tonfa and bearing the pressure with a flex of his muscles which was enough to show everyone else present just how heavily the first strike had landed when Iruka had made the first hit. The silence counted the seconds it was granted when the men measured one another, but it was not alone in its surprise as the tan body set itself into motion faster than a blink, the chuunin retreating his arm from pressing against the countering limb with a quick draw while the other arm was pulled forward and the wooden weapon swung forth from beneath the teacher's forearm, the blunt head of the tonfa directed straight to the jounin's midriff. However, once more, his experienced opponent deflected his strike precisely and pushed his momentum to the side, and Iruka followed the drop down onto the balls of his feet to let a pale arm sail over his head when the older shinobi slashed through the air.

Anticipating the next move, Kakashi pushed himself on the run and dashed away from range when the chuunin's thighs tensed for a lunge, the man's squatted figure spelling trouble as the teacher launched himself after his elusive prey, his scarred back stretching into its full length and the tonfas drawing arcs of lightning as they snapped forward to reach over the distance between the men. Only barely, the elite stopped his rush on time to let the first tonfa flash before his mismatched eyes before he dove down to let the other strike fly through the space where his head had just been, the waves of clear blue raising the hair on his skin upon fleeting contact. Not waiting for the third strike, the jounin turned his full attention to his opponent and struck the man's diaphragm with a heavy blow before following suite with an accompanying strike that most certainly bruised the chuunin's ribs. Continuing the momentum, the agile elite twisted his body like a leaf caught in a whirlwind when a few more strikes bruised the air around him before diving low once more and dashing away from the encounter behind the dark-skinned academician's back, giving both of them a moment to catch up with the adrenaline-fueled match. As he kept his eye on the heavily breathing man, Kakashi swept sweat from his forehead and fought against the tremor of unease that traveled down his neck, reminding himself that this time, his hits had to count or else he himself would be down for the count - or worse.

His shrouded assassin's spirit, on the other hand, wanted to embrace the dangerous playground he had found himself in, and the jounin smirked grimly underneath his black mask as he turned defense into offense and lunged towards the lower rank, his weapons aimed straight towards the man's stiffening back.

The second the chuunin twirled around on silent feet and he caught onto the sharp killing intent baring a set of teeth in the air around the scarred man, however, a healthy portion of his self-preservation instincts stomped onto the brakes and made his legs change the direction to step around the danger he had not anticipated to find on his path. Alas, the miscalculation proved to be lethal, his tactic too slow; Kakashi choked onto a disbelieving gasp as his abdomen folded into itself under crushing pain when the side of Iruka's tonfa dug deep into his middle torso, and his back went through the aftershocks of cracking painfully against the tatami mats as his body was hauled down and his steps were ruthlessly cut short, the thunk of his head only a minor footnote in the cacophony of pain that ripped through his mind and body. He had yet to emerge from the haze when the barrage of brutal blows rained on his body, his shoulders, torso, arms, and legs bearing the brunt as he instinctively shielded his vital organs and the infamous genius mind that switched off all unnecessary tactical processes that had been milling on the back burner, then flipped his vision into the red swirl of Sharingan and his goal to survival.

For a moment, the world around him slowed down, and in the following sluggish seconds, he struck down the hit that had been coming at his chest, locked eyes with his surprised assailant and rolled with the other man's movement to pull his feet back under himself, pushed his body up from the floor and jumped past and over the chuunin who slowly turned the dark-haired head along with his line of movement, before the horrid realization dawned on the man's scarred face. The jounin more felt than consciously realized his body turning in mid-air and then strike down with fatal precision, the full length of his weapon digging deep into the man's upper back before sending him down face first with a thundering cloud of dust erupting from the abused mats.

Konoha's feared Hokage who patiently analyzed and formed new theories while observing the scene before her, paid no mind to the tense silence that stared in shock at the onslaught of violence. A part of her that had not been impressed with the masked jounin's skills as opposed to how the academy teacher made the man work for his rank, Tsunade noted the time when Hatake had opened his Sharingan to even the ground. She also noted that while she had been counting the punches that Iruka had hammered home against Kakashi's tonfas, the jounin getting pinned back on the tatamis almost by the chuunin's sheer force alone, there had begun a faint buzz by her ear, circling her senses like an annoying fly. A quick glance told her that Shizune had not yet registered it, her assistant's eyes kept keenly on the two battling men. Another look to the other side, and it seemed that Hare did not appear to notice anything either. They were all focused on the two men lost in their own private warfare, the jounin and chuunin going after one another like birds of the same feather, the air drawn tense around them while the masked jounin pressed a hand against his aching ribs and kept his eyes on his downed opponent with no regard to the people outside their bubble. 

A passing frown tilted their Hokage's painted lips. Well then.

It took Kakashi a moment to fast-forward his mindset to catch up to himself standing a few feet away from the knocked down chuunin, listening to the labored gasps of his own lungs while his vision swam with the odd stereo-sharpness of Sharingan and his normal eye. His body complained loudly against the hangover of pain it had been drunken with for just a few seconds. He heard only silence around him, people staring at him and the younger man who slowly picked his trembling body up to its feet with a pained groan under his watch, but Kakashi, at that moment, was only interested in what was before him. "Maa. Done with the warm-ups, sensei?"

The dark, slanted eyes that burned at his masked grin were a sight to behold in his opinion.

For a second's breath, there was no sound, only a passing void of silence.

Then, they all saw how Iruka's face contorted in conflict and Kakashi's Sharingan widened in alarm when something in the air clicked its teeth.

A cloud of dust and torn tatami mats rose around the addressed teacher as he stomped his leg to the ground and tensed his body, and in that moment, if any of them had still been optimistic about their situation, they all stood corrected. The chuunin's body flexed its muscles into maximum capacity, releasing the last lingering barrier of control within; the scarred face rushed with red, the dark pupils disappeared into the electric blue of his eyes and the veins on his neck bulged on the verge of giving out. The terrifying sight who they all observed in the training room was no longer the man who he had been, and yet he was exactly who they all were: a shinobi who endured.

Tsunade's commanding shout was a mere footnote that passed by Kakashi's mind as his focus was drowned into the chaos of thousand birds: "Do not approach him! Hatake, do not engage-"

The pained snarl from the chuunin was merely an afterthought that was abandoned in the air, when Kakashi witnessed the anxious seconds that the man before his mismatched eyes took to lunge and swing the wooden weapons at him, the familiar screech of birds rattling the barriers of his battle-hardened mind. On reflex, his gray eye closed and let the Sharingan take over while his body turned into motion, his feet only barely touching the floor as he launched forward to meet the other halfway. Yet, he knew better than to follow the dark shadow in his mind that made the tonfas turn into steel in his hands, the hound's instincts smelling blood on his track and whining in disappointment when they were denied; this was not a kill he was after. The tonfas snapped back into their wooden form in his nimble fingers as he once more threw a somersault over the dark-haired chuunin, his red eye tracking the movement of the man's body as it once again turned to follow his line of motion in the air before he landed on his feet in order to dash away from the combat.

The chirp of a bird at the back of his mind was the only warning he got before a brutal force collided with his side, his feet left the floor and his momentum took a sharp turn to the opposite direction.

A blade of lightning tore through the air, along with a body that was flung across the room. As it landed against the wall with a loud thud, it took a second for Tsunade to realize that it was their most famous ex-ANBU and not the infamous teacher, and that her hands were already going through hand seals. None of the medics needed to wait for Hare's shout of alarm to know exactly what was about to happen when they all recognized the familiar move. What followed, moreover, made her fingers quicker; the wings of blue cut through the air with heavy intent sharpening their curve when the younger man of the duo made his presence known once more, the chuunin rushing directly at the jounin who was only barely catching onto his new position in the room.

On the other hand, the bitter stench of bloodthirst that filled everyone's senses when the red glow of the Sharingan gleamed through the dusty air and locked its glare on the brown-haired nin when the chuunin's tonfa made first contact and sent the jounin up in the air was enough to snap both Shizune and Hare into motion when the barriers fell around them.

Tsunade, on her part, did not wait for them to catch up when the second blow hit the masked jounin on his way up and the elite's back brushed against the ceiling. A very small part of her wished that the fighting men would heed to her words, but the shinobi in her already knew better, and she pushed herself through the foul aftertastes of corpses on her way to intercept the dangerous turn the battle had taken. As she hurried her way across, she could not relinquish the thought of whatever were the limits that the men somehow always insisted on crossing, she would have won several bets just based on the sheer probability of it. Nevertheless, the buzz in her ears grew only stronger the closer she got and the hairs on her skin stood to their ends when she sensed the charge of lightning collecting in the air.

In the middle of the rising storm that wreaked havoc in his mind, Iruka hazily realized that his plan to jump up and finish off his opponent was cut short by an inhumanely strong hand that pressed down on his chest and sent him plummeting backwards from his airborne position. It was soon followed by a pull of nauseating fatigue that suppressed the flow of cacophony inside him and sealed it into a tightly contained coil of violence, before his back hit the floor with merciless force and his mind promptly shut itself down.

As she watched the eyes of the dark-haired chuunin roll back once her seal activated, Tsunade kept her expression unwavering before turning to catch the other unconscious shinobi who dropped into her arms and required her aid. While the dust settled, the seasoned kunoichi was fleetingly surprised to find herself counting her breaths. A grim notion of researcher's satisfaction reared its head in her mind when she lowered the masked man down on the floor and noted that the silver-haired jounin had been able to block most of the final hits before losing the fight against vertigo, the man's heavily breathing body revealing no fatal injuries during her cautious scanning. Without a word, the experienced medic focused, and began healing her trusted soldier.

"Tsunade-sama," Shizune called cautiously behind her back, and only then Tsunade became aware of breath she had yet to release from her lungs.

"How's Umino?" she asked in turn before glancing at her aide over her shoulder, not relinquishing the hold of her glowing hands on the patient just yet.

"He's breathing, doesn't appear to have any broken ribs. Some fingers on his hands are swelling, propably from the last punches with the tonfas, and his shoulder looks like it was close to getting dislocated, but far as I can scan it, nothing too serious. He had luck on his side," the medic reported.

"Very well then," Tsunade amended and stepped aside to let Hare check up on the jounin properly when she let go of the man. As the ANBU started their work over the beaten jounin, Tsunade turned her focus on the mentioned other man who lay sprawled on the floor by Shizune's feet.

"I did warn him at the beginning," Hare muttered behind their mask, their voice tattling of genuine concern this time as their glowing hands passed over their former captain's body. "Our academy teachers are more resourceful than an average chuunin. He in particular, I suppose," they added quietly.

"You could say that," Tsunade agreed and cast another look at the knocked-out masked pride of their village. "That came too close for comfort. Any more of these and we just might break them."

If Hare was confused about the strangely worded declaration they were smart enough not to show it. They did not, however, let things go unsaid. "That is not all, is it, Hokage-sama."

"Not the first one on this mission, Hare," Tsunade noted with a dry smile and then turned towards the groan of an awakening chuunin. "If I'm correct, possibly not the last one, either."

As if sensing the danger that was the focus of his superior on his miserable being, the dark-haired shinobi stopped faking his death on the floor and lifted his head wearily up. The man breathed painfully and held his upper body awkwardly still while Shizune went over his ribs with healing hands, the slowly alleviating pain giving the teacher something to concentrate on instead of staring at his commander. A faint flush of red stole across his high cheeks and a hiss of a curse pushed out when a particularly nasty twinge of pain made itself known when the man tried to shift into a better position on his back before giving up the attempts to move. The Lotus was notorious for its toll on the human body, never mind to an inexperienced shinobi, and the bright-minded pedagogue was, by all accounts, mentally admonishing himself for losing his head like that. Nevertheless, he had a commanding officer to answer to. "How is he?"

Tsunade blinked and then turned to look at her subordinate who was fussing around the knocked out elite assassin. As if they had expected it, Hare turned to answer her look and gave a feeble thumbs up before concentrating again on their handiwork. With that, Tsunade tsked and gave a glance at the dark-skinned man next to her. "Pulled through, somewhat. He's going to feel terrible once he wakes up, that's for sure." What she was more surprised about, however, was the odd rush of excitement passing through her mind at the new development, and she could not stop the faint grin pulling at the corners of her mouth. They were, as far as she was interpreting it, approaching a rather curious turning point. "That was a new thing you pulled, Umino. We suspected that you might use Lotus since you were getting so close with the Third Gate, but I can't say that I wasn't impressed when you actually unlocked it."

The choked, pained cough wasn't enough to hide the younger man's blatant disbelief. "You expected me to-"

"Use it against Hatake? Absolutely. Any shinobi worth their salt would attempt that if they knew it," Hare piped in, the earlier darkness in their voice nowhere to be heard. "Besides," they then said in a more serious tone, "Hatake has been trained to defend against it. But for you to go through to him like that was something that even I failed to anticipate. I don't think he himself had time to understand what was happening-", an aggravated groan made the ANBU stop and turn to look at the masked man next to them.

The jounin in question, as if becoming suddenly aware of the slander coming from his former teammate, rolled slowly up on his side and picked himself up on all fours, gasping and shaking on the floor in a manner that Tsunade had not seen for a while.

While eyeing the man with the air of the commanding medic, she pushed aside the grim memories as she crossed her arms and gave the man a moment before addressing him. "You did well, Hatake." It wasn't much as consolation, they both knew, but it was enough for now.

"Always, Hokage-sama," the jounin curtly replied before he pushed himself sitting up and turned to look at the woman, the Sharingan eye firmly closed once again. "How's -?"

"He's fine, despite your efforts," Tsunade cut in before the man could address the question she had begun to anticipate from them both. Yet when she saw the contemplating look glazing over the man's lone dark eye, her own plucked eyebrows pulled down in suspicion. "That was not the only thing you wanted to know, was it."

As it was, the tilt of the gray-haired head was as good as any answer, when the masked elite shifted his posture on the floor and scratched his covered cheek. "Maa. There was something off. I wonder what."

"Never thought to see the day when you go straight from almost murdering the man to complaining about the lack of love in the act," the blonde medic quipped quicker than any of the four shinobis present had thought her capable of, considering the ex-ANBU sounded like choking on his mask at her taunting words. Before the man could protest the lack of answer to his earlier statement, his commander went on: "Don't act so surprised, we all felt your intent during those last moments. I was just about to deck you too. Luckily it did not get to that point. Like I said," she said and gave a nod at one of her best men, "you -"

"You really are a piece of work, you know that?" A sharp bark of a smooth baritone cut in from the floor-level before they could go further, followed by a blazing gaze when Iruka turned his head to glare at the masked ex-ANBU. "You were putting yourself out there - no, you do not interrupt me," the chuunin barked once the silver-haired jounin lifted his finger up for an input, "pulling your fucking rank again at my face and volunteering to be my punching bag with no regard to your health just so we'd get to the point where I almost - no, actually, I'm not going to say it. Any of it, for that matter." The man huffed in palpable annoyance and attempted to cross his arms on his chest, regretted it instantly when his ribs complained in extreme agony at the rushed movement and the resulting angry spark of electricity made everyone flinch back. The man was however clearly wishing that his moral backbone would allow him to say more if the fuming glare he gave to everyone from his incapacitated position was anything to go by.

Of course, Kakashi, by his nature, was hoping to get to those topics. "Maa, Iruka-"

"Shut it," the peeved teacher seethed from laying on his back, the dark eyes casting a flinty look at the gray-haired harebrain. Although, when he started to catch onto the awkward silence of Shizune who was still trying to lessen the pain that had made a nest inside his rib cage, and then meeting eyes with Tsunade who looked at him like a doctor who was about to make their patient feel even worse than what they were before meeting them, he released a frustrated huff and reorganized his priorities. "It gave no warning when it happened. I was going at it the best I could, and then the next thing I knew was that I was seriously attempting to - well. If that is what it does then I for one am glad I have never been on the receiving end of it."

"It is usually directed only towards enemies, sensei," Tsunade amended, only the slightest twitch of a lip breaking her poker face. "On the other hand, I guess the situation could have been viewed in that way, considering your shared history." To everyone's surprise, a glow of red crept on the recuperating chuunin's face, and as the man turned his gaze to look anywhere else than any of the shinobis around him, Tsunade lifted an eyebrow at what she knew she had sensed during those few upsetting seconds. "Well then. Let's get you fixed. I have a feeling that you would kill for some tea right now." Not minding anyone else than the patient before her, the Hokage sat down beside the dark-skinned chuunin and resumed her role as her village's leading medic, while her aides turned to help the older shinobi in turn.

After the silence had stretched for a moment longer than was polite, Kakashi picked himself from the floor, not paying heed to the other Black-Op who reached down to help their ex-captain back up. He knew they were observing him, taking note of his labored breaths and slightly trembling muscles when he pulled himself up, but he had long since learned to prioritize his concerns.

Deeming that nobody was interested in his participation for the time being, Kakashi mulled silence on his tongue as he squared his shoulders, dusted himself off and limped his way to the kitchen without paying attention to the two medical professionals who were left watching after his exit. If he was left alone to his own devices, he might as well make himself useful by brewing some drinks and making some sandwiches.

The fickle electric chirp that echoed inside his chest did not go unnoticed.

"I think it's time for us to wrap things up for the day," Tsunade offered calmly without taking her eyes off the peeved sensei who glared after the jounin under her palms. Others seemed to agree with her.

"Well, this is an unpleasant way to end the day, but can't blame the circumstances," Hare chattered quietly as they sat on the terrace of the light-gray house with Kakashi accompanying them.

Tsunade and Shizune had left after the Hokage had sat down with the infuriated academy teacher in the training room and they had talked something which none of the others were able to hear. After the discussion Iruka had seemed to calm down, but the man had instantly switched tempers when Kakashi had come knocking with their lunch, and the younger man had refused to engage in any conversation with his mission partner. Luckily the teacher had not yet put his body through any more extreme moves than what his regular training had allowed. Breaking bones and tearing ligaments with too heavy strikes was an unfortunate yet regular occurrence for when it came to Gate users, the Konoha's Green Beast and his well-loved protégé both acting as an infamous example for it. Yet that could change in an instant if the Gates started to affect the man any more than they already were and the chuunin lost all coherence in the match, so Tsunade's team, like any other medics, knew how fickle facts could be in uncharted territory.

As it was, the young man was once more writing down his notes, but the palpable aggression in the scrapes of his pen did put both ANBUs painfully aware of having their backs turned to him.

"Maa, I would be surprised if you did," the masked jounin murmured.

The porcelain mask tilted in thought, yet Kakashi knew not to be played by the insignificant gesture. The moment when the ANBU medic leaned closer to the infamous Hound, however, they both knew what sort of grin adorned the hidden face. "He is surprisingly feisty."

"That is not helping," Kakashi drawled back with a deliberate bite hidden in his bark and leaned away from the inquisitive ANBU.

"I know, senpai," Hare chuckled and tapped the jounin's darkly clad shoulder. "Neither of you need my help in that department." The widening gray eye on their insufferable ex-captain's made for their gossip material for weeks to come, but Hare knew that they were living on borrowed time the more they teased their former superior, and not by the man himself. "But before I meet my embarrassing death at the hands of a Konoha chuunin, I'll go and visit Tenzou. Don't do anything that I would not approve. I'll see you in a few hours."

Before Kakashi could retaliate, a soft puff of displaced air filled the space where the Black-Op had been sitting a moment ago.

His ears caught the exact moment the pen stopped behind him.

"Damn ANBU medics," the jounin muttered and turned to observe the man whose footsteps carried over the silence. Sure enough, the dark-haired shinobi was making his way towards him, the dark notebook and pen held loosely in his hand and yet they both knew how false that sense of security would be for Kakashi to lull himself in. A part of him hoped that he was raised better than to face danger head-on. "Maa, that pen better be sharp if you wish to stab me through the barrier with it, sensei."

"Don't call me by my title, bastard," came the brisk answer from the other side of the barrier. However, the evenly assessing look on the man's face was at odds with the clear ring of irritation coloring his voice. "We're past that." The defiant look in the brown eyes held for a passing moment. Then, to the surprise of anyone knowing the man, the chuunin gave a defeated sigh and slumped down on crossed legs, the black notebook giving a feeble thump as it was dropped from the man's hold onto the floor.

Kakashi was fairly sure that he was witnessing the first time the man was obviously very angry but was not filling the space between them with words. He wasn't sure if he liked that.

"Go on, lecture me as you wish," the younger nin said and rubbed his hands over his eyes before taking in a deep breath behind his palms. "I owe you that much."

It took a few blinks for the ex-ANBU to decipher the tone behind the man's words. He felt suprised to feel his shoulders relax when he realized his position. "Maa. I think the fault lies equally here. You of all people should know -"

"We both know that I should not have let it go that far," the chuunin countered back, his words gaining a bit of familiar heat from their earlier debates, before falling silent once more, as if conflicted about where to go from there.

The masked jounin who observed the man before his mismatched eyes could not blame him, for Kakashi knew all too well the shadows that crossed over the scarred face.

"...This...is the first time when I really think that I've reached my limit," the words were formed cautiously, as if weighing the consequences, when Iruka spoke again. "There's no shame in admitting it, I guess. Doesn't make it easier to face it, however."

It didn't, the silver-haired jounin could agree with that, while his Sharingan gave a dull throb. He then shifted his gaze into his hands, the pale palms resting on his thighs, before flexing his fingers. "Not every shinobi who I know is willing to kill their target. Most would prefer to just knock them out, if they can help it. However, the higher we go in the mission ranking, there rarely is an option for that." Feeling that his words were not reaching his teammate, the jounin leaned closer to the barrier and fixed the man with long enough stare to make sure that the younger nin had no other choice but to look back at him. Then he spoke. "What you felt, in those few seconds, does not change the fact that you are not a man who kills by nature."

"How many have you killed with your raikiri?" The jounin before him fell silent at the sudden inquiry, the man blinking slowly before breaking the eye contact to look at the high fence in their yard. Noticing the change in the man's mood, Iruka rubbed his hands together, as if the electricity that occasionally danced on his skin was again itching his fingers. He didn't want to guess what the other man was thinking at that moment, or linger on how he had worded the question. "It is a fearsome weapon. More terrifying than I thought."

"Have you killed many on your missions?" The older man's low bass spoke the question so quietly that it took a moment for the teacher to catch it. The undertone in it, however, made him avert his gaze from the seasoned assassin who continued to look away and sat stock still on the other side of the barrier. He let the silence linger for a bit, part of him unsure of how to approach the new topic that they had now decided to discuss.

"I'm sure you already know my reputation as a barrier user." He huffed lightly at his own evasive words, not letting his hackles rise up at the knowledge of gossip that went around in the mission roster. "But I have. Never would if I could find a way around it, though. Of course there's a difference on how it is done, one can hardly compare a long-distance trap to close combat - the weight of lost lives is not the same if their faces are never seen. On the other hand, it should not be a radical concept, to respect the weight of a human life."

A light hum, completely at odds with their somber conversation, came from the masked shinobi who kept his face still turned away from the younger nin behind him. "Could you be the reason why Naruto is usually so hell-bent on keeping everyone alive even though all odds are against him and no matter who he is facing off against?"

Iruka couldn't help but laugh a bit at that, despite the situation. Truly, the tale of Uzumaki Naruto has left a rather permanent mark on one aloof Hatake. Not that he was surprised by that. "You're giving me far too much credit thinking that he would take after me. No, I think his path of shinobi has formed all on his own when it comes to that."

"Now you're being modest again. You had a bigger impact on him than you think," Kakashi said and slowly turned back to face the other man, if only to see the way how the chuunin always rubbed his nose over the given compliments.

After a moment, a dark brown eyebrow rose skeptically on the tan forehead. "What, no barbwire hidden in there this time?"

Kakashi gave a small smirk beneath his mask and winked at the slightly apprehensive looking man. "I thought I might leave you hanging. Build up the anticipation."

"I never liked a man who makes a habit of edging," Iruka countered before his conscious brain was able to apply brakes, and it took a moment for him to register the light blush taking over the masked man's visible cheekbones, or the several blinks that the gray eye gave in his immediate direction. On the other hand, considering the heat that gathered on his own face upon that note made him choke on a cough and turn his eyes away from his stoically flustered colleague. With nothing at hand to save him, he rose up on his feet and took a turn towards his tea collection, hoping to find solace, or death, when drowning himself with a steaming cup. The moment he heard the jounin draw a breath, he braced himself for the worst.

"Now - what else do you not like-"

"I could really use some advise with this Gate situation, you know," Iruka spelled out perhaps a bit more forcefully than he normally would, but he figured that he could be forgiven. He tore open a tea pouch, not really looked how much it measured in his sieve and hoped that he had checked the water temperature right when he all but dumped the poor oolong into his cup. He could feel a migraine forming behind his eye lids. Which, in his darkening opinion, was a fantastic new option considering what other places in him had been aching during the past few days, and which he had done his best to ignore. He gave a glance at the unnervingly quiet elite behind his back and regretted it instantly once he caught the man's lone eye staring right back at him.

"Maa, do you want my help with this or not?" Kakashi offered with a disarming grin. The utter bastard.

The lingering tone of red on the pale cheeks, however, was something that Iruka decided to place in a safe place in his memory. For later. "Fine. I'm listening."

"There are a few things that you have to work on. First off, your temper is not helping. Hold on, hold on," the jounin backpedaled the moment when he realized the danger he was in when the chuunin shot him a warning look. "Look, the Gates do not open by themselves. Of course, in your situation it is clear that the two first gates have been thrown open and apparently are not currently feeling up to closing by their own volition, but the Third Gate is something that you still actively need to push open. That's a conscious decision, which makes it important in your situation." He was somewhat relieved to find no lightning bolts flung at his direction, barrier or not, once the teacher took the tea with him and sat down closer to the (in Iruka's mind) one-eyed idiot hell-bent on tempting a storm.

The teacher took a measured sip from his drink, if only to let the older shinobi brew in suspense. "You mean that I should actively want to punch your face in order to unlock it? I do see the logic in that."

Many had said that watching only his gray eye rolling was always strange, but Kakashi did it anyway. "What I mean is that instead of going with the flow of the fight and just getting injured in the process with a half-finished Lotus, you can actually control when to use it."

"Saa, isn't that exactly the reason why we ended up like this in the first place?" When he thought about it honestly, Iruka felt slightly lost in the conversation right then. What was the village genius getting them into this time?

"This is a different kind of control, so pay attention." Kakashi decided to let the murderous glance bounce off his mask. "I'm not telling you to block it completely, but rather manipulate the Gate so that instead of bursting completely open with full force without any thought given, you can fine tune it into a blade that breaks through at just the right moment."

The dawning, if slightly doubting, grin on the tan face was a welcomed change of tone in the younger shinobi's body language, in Kakashi's opinion. "Never thought you'd be this willing to give me tips."

"Ah, but when there's an attack, the blade can be parried. And when you get very good at blocking attacks, well, I'm still here, aren't I." The exaggerated flourish of pale hands when he said it made the dark-haired academician snort in his tea. Kakashi would admit that it was intentional. "Either way, the better you're able to handle the blade in your hand, the less you use unnecessary movements when swinging it around. The same goes with the Gate usage. You don't just destroy everything within vicinity indiscriminately but focus the tip of your attack to the very being of your opponent and keep it there, and, if necessary, refrain from using it. Your brain has to coordinate with your bloodthirst. Otherwise you're just a murderer on a rampage, not a shinobi." It took him a moment to notice how the chuunin had fallen completely silent and was listening to his every word from the other side of the barrier. Part of his brain, which was not engrossed in the topic, made a small mental note on how he liked that look of concentration on the man's scarred face while his speech carried on. "Your body will not keep up with it either. None of us are free from the limits of our own bodies, even Gai knows that. He won't use a Gate unless he absolutely has to, because every use comes with a price. The more he does it, and the longer he keeps it up during a battle. That's why he was so concerned about Lee using it in the Chuunin Exams back then. That's also why I am the one who enters that room with you and takes on the punches you trow at me, because I know what to look for."

Iruka gave a blink once the man stopped talking and the jounin's words sunk into his mind. He hoped that he didn't look as dazed as he suddenly felt after the small lecture was over. "Then what are the other things I should work on?" he asked before he could help himself. The jounin's voice had been drawing him in, and he was loathe to admit that he was not opposing it.

"Stop thinking like a chuunin. Again, hold it," Kakashi said and hurriedly lifted a finger the moment he heard the porcelain crack. "This is exactly what we have talked about before. You cannot let your rank dictate how you enter the fight, even when facing against a higher rank. The moment you get riled up is when you're making yourself an easy target to your opponent."

"Well that's all high and mighty, coming from someone who has made a whole side career in just riling me up," Iruka bit through the bait he knew was proving the insufferable man's point. "May I remind you, it is you who keeps pulling our rank over my head whenever you want to see one section of the house getting further destroyed - and, no, you do not get to look at me like that."

"I'm only admiring the way how you prove my point," Kakashi teased and gave a grin behind his mask at the aggravated growl he heard coming from the chuunin before he let the lilt of his voice drop the teasing. "But even a Kage will fall if their opponent plays it smart. It's not the rank, it's the skill that matters."

As if on cue, the strong hands put down the tea to cover the tan face, and a long groan was released from beneath them. "What in kami's name have I done to deserve all this?" Then the hands were lifted in a manner of surrender, revealing a deep hue of red decorating the horizontal scar crossing over the man's cheekbones, and a dry self-depreciating smile adorned the full lips. "Fair enough, I should have seen this coming. Skills over rank, fine. Foolish of me to ask."

"Maa, it isn't foolish if you reflect on what we're discussing here and adjust your actions based upon it," Kakashi eased himself back onto track when at the same time he idly wondered about the heat forming in his gut at the sight in front of him. There was something in the posture and the expression of the embarrassed man that made his instints...restless.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but I remember being told specifically to not try to control it when we had our match earlier," Iruka countered readily. "I have non-existing talent for handling a Gate, and what you're telling me right now is like asking Gai to perform genjutsu. Everything works perfectly in theory."

Kakashi never thought of himself as someone who would get easily frustrated, but he was getting close. "Then use what you have to make up for the lacking skills, or train the weakness into strength. Adapting to an impossible situation is not a foreign concept to us, at least when you think about the way we have handled this mission. You have proven to be able to think outside the box many times already, what makes this-"

"I almost killed you." There. He said it. Iruka could feel a cold weight plummeting his body temperature down as he listened to the echoing silence that enveloped them. Hearing himself say those words made it a struggle to keep the eye contact with the man before him, the renowed legend whose expression of genuine pain as his end of the tonfa had dug deep into the man's body surfaced in his memory.

"...Is that why you acted up?" Kakashi murmured back at the distressed man as he looked into the chuunin's eyes. The guilt was written all over the scarred face.

"..I..Yes," Iruka admitted and finally averted his gaze from his mission partner. "I did not want them to witness this. Also I think I have never been that mad at you, for being so reckless." The broad shoulders lifted with a deep breath and the teacher let out a long sigh in order to ease out the building tension in his body, if only to lessen the annoying buzz that had made a nest in the back of his mind. It sounded like it was mocking him. "I would not have felt any different if you had chosen to not enter the match today."

It did take a minute, for him to catch that. When he did, Kakashi's throat swallowed heavily and his mouth went ahead before his celebrated analytical mind caught up with it. "Well. I think we're now at a point where we can both admit that foolhardiness is not as attractive as the Icha-Icha series makes people think."

Judging by the way how the dark brown eyes on the chuunin's scarred face narrowed to look at him with suspicion, Kakashi came to the conclusion that he was admittedly not alone in thinking between the lines with this particular slip of tongue. Well.

"...Did you let me through your defences intentionally?" came the sudden, deceivingly calm question from the chuunin who suddenly sat eerily still on his side of the barrier.

Against the advise of his logical brain, the addressed jounin answered the other's gaze dead on with his gray eye. "Maa. Sometimes there isn't a chance to use a Shadow Clone to gather information."

The tan palms were slowly pressed together and the chuunin lifted the joined hands in front of his mouth while he took a deep breath and held it, as if praying for patience. Then, a set of ten fingers were turned and directed pointing straight at the pale man's face, while the palms stayed pressed firmly in contact. "Let me rephrase. You let me, a chuunin, beat your jounin ass almost to the gates of death, just because you wanted to see how I would do it?"

"Well - kind of, when you put it that way."

Iruka had to force the parts of his face to cooperate in order not to pull a muscle. "Kind of, Kakashi?"

"I do admit that I was not at my finest. Although it was not all completely intentional, the heat of the moment just got a bit ahead of me," Kakashi drawled and scratched his cheek, if only to warm up the fingers of his dominant hand. Judging by the thoroughly appalled expression that took over the tan teacher's face, he was starting to suspect that he might need them in a minute. 

"Kami forbid if I ever cross your path in an actual battle if a borderline death match counts as a heat of the moment for you. How the hell have you survived this far in life? Is this what it means to think like a jounin, all this lecturing about brain coordinating with bloodthirst and then throwing it all into the wind when things get heavy?" In Iruka's opinion it was a very likely possibility that he was getting close to his another personal limit the more he kept hearing this nonsense. He had not missed the headaches this much.

"Maa, maa, that was uncalled for," the masked elite said and waved his hand dismissively, even though it would take a fool not to notice the sharp gleam in his dark gray eye. "Besides, I think you know perfectly well what I am referring to here. Your killing intent was not any different from mine during those last seconds when you decided to put theory into practise."

"I was operating blindly with a FUCKING GATE. A GATE. THAT CHANGES THINGS." No shadow around the chuunin dared to point out the extra octave his voice gained suddenly.

"Ah, but behind every intent there is a motive, be it either an ingrained reflex, a tactical move, or a rookie's mistake," Kakashi countered while mentally wincing at the high note that hit his sensitive ears. "That makes me wonder what your motives were when you first agreed to this odd arrangement and now tried to nail me to the ceiling. You're giving me mixed messages here."

"You know you are making it really hard right now for me to decide if the first thing I want to do once I get rid of this barrier is to either strangle or fuck you," Iruka growled and glared at the jounin whose mask had stretched into a wolfish grin. However, when he heard his words through the haze of his flared temper and foul mouth, it didn't take him long to register the stunned look that was given him by the target of his ire. The gray eye stared at him over the black mask, and for a moment, the academy teacher wasn't sure if the jounin had stopped breathing altogether.

The afternoon light stretched and yawned around them, but neither man paid attention to it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Kakashi drew in a breath and stayed perfectly still in his seated position on the terrace, while his mind whirred into overdrive. The gray eye kept its gaze locked on the other man who sat on the other side of the barrier, the man's expression frozen somewhere between mortification and headstrong determination, while framed with a brilliant shade of red, as if the man dared him to deny what both of them had obviously been tossing and turning in their minds during the past days. Gradually, since there was no further tirade coming from the chuunin, the ex-ANBU gathered his blessings and focused on another small slip. "You-"

"Correct," Iruka said, straightened his back, and flashed through a quick series of hand seals. As the tell-tale ringing of a falling barrier echoed around him and he caught the sight of the widening gray eye on the silver-haired man's masked face, he counted his quickening heartbeats.

Then, he lunged.

There had been moments in Kakashi's life when he had distinctively felt time slowing down around him. Most notably it had happened when he received his Sharingan and was able to see the world through the eyes of his fallen friend. In some cases, it had happened when his former Team Seven was about to do something very stupid on a mission and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Right now, however, it happened when he looked into the dark brown eyes through the cascading shards of a falling barrier.

The sharp pen that zipped past his head, trailed by a strike of blinding lightning, when he ducked down onto his crossed legs to dodge made him finally catch up with the reel of reality.

The male body that followed its path onto the terrace made his arms take their turn and pushed him to roll into a squat away from range, and then passed the torch to his legs that reflexively launched him in the direction of the tonfas he had set down nearby. His hands closed around the wooden handles the moment he sensed the teacher take a swift turn and jump after him. The swing he made through the air with the weapons as he spun on his knees and turned to face the dark-haired academician was cool and composed, and he felt a measure of pride in the way how it forced his opponent to back down when he himself had a chance to stand up and find his balance. Seeing the other without any weapons, if the thrown pen didn't count, his mind crossed out options and he threw one of his tonfas to the other nin.

The ominous crackle of electricity was low enough to become a mere background noise for them when Iruka caught the offered weapon with a burst of blue light traveling from his wrist to his elbow, since both men knew where their focus should be.

Kakashi, on his part, decided that this was not the time for him to delay his tactics.

Iruka did not disappoint in his response when the seasoned shinobi opened up his Sharingan. The young man let out a sharp breath and dashed forward on silent feet, the tonfa snapping in place against the muscled arm before it was released to cut a round arc of liquid lightning through the air when it was swung at the older nin who parried the blow on reflex, redirecting the weapon's path to the side before forcing the tan man to take a step back by punching the air upwards with the short end of his weapon, it almost catching the tip of the scarred nose. Without waiting for retaliation, the ex-ANBU gracefully jumped over the dark-haired teacher's head and rushed into the training room before his route could have been cut short by the nin who turned to follow him.

The instant when Iruka rounded the corner he was almost nailed by a tonfa sent sailing through the air. On hindsight, he should have felt a small amount of pride about the fact that he was able to both sidestep and catch the weapon fluidly as it whirled through the air right beside his ear. However, the sudden blur of hits that rained down on him from two matching tonfas when the Copy-Nin emerged from the shadows and pushed him sideways inside the room to stumble against a wall and then over his futon in an attempt to block the brutal strikes landing against his weapons would have been distracting to any shinobi. The rotating swings and piercing punches of the devastating weapons in their hands morphed into a dance of death when they immersed into their match, the tricks of their trade showing in the graceful way they traded blows and twirled the polished lengths of wood through the air, their physical dimensions ever changing along the reach and range they could manipulate between them.

A cry of thousand birds echoed through the space after one particularly nasty hit made Iruka bite down on a curse, and he hastily backed away towards the center of the room from the jounin who stopped the chase and observed him over the clutter against the backdrop of the outside light, the doors to the terrace left open behind the man's back. The gray eye was kept closed and the Sharingan spinned unnervingly languidly, the masked mouth stayed hidden in shadows against the bright afternoon sun, and the silhouette of the deeply breathing body dressed in tightly fitting clothes made the chuunin bite down on a different kind of word.

Then, as the silent elite killer took a measured step back towards the doors to pull them shut behind his back with a decisive click, Iruka watched the stance of the trained body give gravitas to his position once the older man's silently forming intent hit his sharpened senses, and he knew what he wanted to bite down on.

Considering the shrouded gaze the jounin gave over his figure, he admitted that he wasn't the only one.

He readied his stance and lifted his tonfas by his side to face the quiet elite, with drops of lightning dancing on his fingertips. He kept his gaze on the ex-ANBU, and let his legs reflect the circling the jounin slowly started towards him, stepping to the side and matching the pace, just like he had been trained to. The sizzling snaps that caressed his ears made his hair stand on end, and there was a persistent pull on the seal that was put on his chest, but he didn't let that waver his focus while he reached inwards and felt his own element arise from slumber, the course of lightning taking a more fluidly flowing form inside his veins. The sudden widening of the Sharingan belied the moment when the jounin caught up with his flaring chakra, but his feet were already carrying him over the tatami mats, his body carving a path through the tension that had thickened between them as he reached his target, spun on his heels, let the length of the tonfa to rotate in his grip and delivered a heavy blow sideways against the unflinching defense he was already expecting.

The crack of wood against wood rang loud and clear around the men who stilled over the crossed weapons like many times before, the narrow, brown eyes staring this time into the spinning wheel of red and black. Their muscles spasmed and pulled as they pushed against the pressure forming between one another, the flow of blue chakra coiling like a serpent around their bodies and joined weapons, it whipping against their skin and hissing in their minds, buzzing with a dark promise should they take up on the offer.

In that sense, seeing the Sharingan up and close was dangerously hypnotic, which Iruka soon found out as his tonfa was suddenly struck to the side so hard it made his fingers numb, a second hit marked its spot against his stomach and the third strike swept out his feet from under him. His vision tilted towards the ceiling when his back bounced off the matted floor. The army of blue dots flashed a strobo light show in the corners of his vision, which made his body act upon ingrained training rather than conscious thought, and his back twisted to give his legs the momentum he needed to swipe the floor with a wide windmill kick before any expected barrage of hits could reach his body. The shadow of another male jumped over him and gave him the needed adrenaline surge to flip onto his stomach, grab his weapons and push himself back up. The brush of air from a heavy swing that traveled just a few inches away from his scarred nose made the fine hairs on his face to brush over his cheeks and a wave of thunder to travel along his skin, it erupting a flood of goosebumps on its way.

What he didn't expect was a quick and ruthless blow what felt like a tree trunk landing on his chest that sent him rolling backwards on the floor. The chuunin forced his body to keep up with the movement and shifted gears in his joints as he smoothly rolled his legs back under him and stepped up from the floor and then -

Hit an edge of a futon with his heel and fell victim to gravity, his ass thumping against the fresh sheets and his upper back thunking against the wall, his ears barely registering the sound of his weapons clattering on the floor. On reflex, he twisted his head to the side when the tip of a tonfa made a dent into the wood panel right on the spot where it had been a second ago. Before he could retaliate, a blunt, rounded and polished lenght of wood pressed lightly against his throat and lifted his chin up from the other side, thus capturing his head between the two weapons. A solid body pressed well into his personal range, a heaving chest brushed against his own and a strong thigh settled between his legs, it igniting a blue flicker of flame inside his system and releasing a wanton shudder over his spent and aching muscles. The arm that held the weapon on his skin was unwawering, as was the gaze of the man who leaned close over him.

Yet the infamous red iris was no longer visible, but a more familiar gray eye that peered at him over the rim of the black fabric, dark and burning, which made his knees weak.

His body had tired itself while fighting on two fronts; his arms and legs were already trembling from the chaos of chakra swirling inside his synapses and the gates kept rattling against the seal inside his chest. His hands, however, had never learned to pass up an opportunity in a fight.

A set of tan fingers snagged the dark fabric which covered the pale face underneath, pulled it down with vicious precision and reeled it in, along with the man following it, to press the jounin's mouth against the awaiting pair of full lips. A thrum of thunder moaned around them like an undersea cave in the middle of a storm, but nobody paid any attention to it as the men released a shared gasp, savouring the taste of danger that nipped at their tongues before they clashed their mouths messily over another greedy kiss. Then suddenly, a tan hand shot up and sent a tonfa flying from where it had been resting beside his head before he caught it in the air and gave a stab at the pale man's head with it. Like a flash, the man was off of him, and he watched the jounin build distance between them while he supported himself against the wall with a baited breath as he stood up.

Kakashi observed the disheveled man before his lone eye, taking in the darkened eyes and the way how the muscled body carried itself, a prime example of a capable shinobi. He ignored the draft that brushed against his exposed jawline, and brushed tentatively his tingling lips with his knuckles. Noticing how the chuunin's gaze tracked the movement, and how it made the rush of desire bloom in its red glory on the man's high cheekbones, the ex-ANBU couldn't stop himself from giving a flirtatious smirk at the man. It looked like something very familiar had finally made its reappearance in their dynamics.

He deflected a well-aimed hit from hitting his shoulder as an afterthought when his mind was pulled back from the gutter. His legs shifted to the side as he sidestepped the chuunin's assault and the hand holding his weapon whacked the man on the back while doing so, and it was only that moment when it truly hit him.

He felt...charged. Rejuvenated.

The man gave a fleeting glance at his right hand where he could see sparks of lightning caressing his nails before flickering out.

Not that he had time to revel in that fact.

With the new discovery put on the afterburner, the pale assassin launched an attack towards his opponent who had been in the process of sneaking up to his blind side, cutting the chuunin's path rather rudely and making the younger man block the forceful blow he sent in his direction, sending the chuunin staggering and then forcing the man to backtrack in haste as he continued their macabre waltz; his tonfa swung through the air with a dull humming sound as he drove his prey relentlessly to where he wanted him.

His Sharingan, however, he decided to keep out of play. For now.

At the sight of the younger man's dawning realization as to how the tables may had turned when the chuunin's responses started to lose their edge, he couldn't help but tease the tension. "Maa. This is starting to feel familiar. However," he gave a thrust forward with the full length of his weapon, and the dark desire in him relished the way how Iruka's back hit the wall and the chuunin swallowed when the tip of his tonfa came to rest between the man's collarbones, forcing all movement to halt and the tan throat exposed to his view yet again. "It makes me wonder if this is how you pictured it."

There were no words forthcoming from the dark-skinned teacher. The darkly clothed chest heaved with deep breaths and the tan skin was covered in sweat, accentuated occasionally with small sparks of blue. The man's gaze, on the other hand, was answering him loud and clear. Kakashi wasn't sure if he had ever been as tempted as he was right then. In response to the challenge he had been given, he let the tip of his weapon to slide down the other's chest, following the dips and curves as it made its way towards the man's pants. Not once did he look away from the scarred face as his hand controlled the length of wood, and thus did not miss the expression Iruka made when the blunt head lightly caressed the bulge between the man's legs; the full lips dropping open with a sharp intake of breath and the dark, slanted eyes fluttering closed with a flash of blue irises for just a second. When he applied weight to the motion, the jounin could only watch as the chuunin's body arched up against the wall, head thrown back, and a whip of their mixed elements traveled through their physical connection to bite his fingers on the handle.

That was the only warning he was given before one tan hand grabbed him by the neck and the other struck the remaining tonfa out of his hand so hard it made them both lose their grips on their weapons. The thumps of discarded weaponry was merely a passing observation when Kakashi's heart stuttered in his chest, the needles of lust pricking on his skin when a panting mouth closed over his own and a firm body pressed flush against him, the movement of the chuunin forcing him to walk back while his hands relocated themselves on the new battlefield on the other shinobi's hair and ass. A throaty groan escaped him, along with his sanity as an answering moan reached his ears and a long lick of chakra marked its path up to his thighs and over his hips that ground against their counterpart.

It was not, however, making him forget the count of his steps. He tightened his hold on the younger man and spun them around, making them stumble over soft linen and thunking against the nearby wall on their way down. As they fell on the futon, their tangled bodies rolled as one and rearranged their limbs in a short-lived match of wrestling. Kakashi did not care if his foot accidentally kicked against something that felt suspiciously like a wooden box or that Iruka's flailing elbow managed to click on the water boiler right next to them when he managed to land on top of his enticing catch.

The hissing of the boiling water mixed with their own sounds as Iruka was pinned against the mattress and the jounin atop of him rolled their hips together in a torturous pace. His legs had been pushed apart and the maddening rub of thighs against his own with every roll the older man made against his cock threw him into limbo of rampant libido. To drive in a point to his sadistic partner in crime, he locked his legs behind the silver-haired assassin's back and pulled the man's hips forcefully down while he pushed up, only barely catching himself crying out with an outburst of blue light as he tossed his head back to ride the surge. He was fairly sure that the jounin sounded like hitting new high notes as well. Iruka's hands traveled along the shapes of the jounin's clothed body and scalp, his fingers digging into the hard muscles underneath and tugging at the fair strands of hair as he pulled the older man down to meet him as his back arched up. The seal inside his chest rippled and curled into itself as he gave in to the sensations traveling through his body, to the drunken desire that made his tongue coax the man he was holding to suck and nip at it.

He felt almost disappointed when the man's mouth relocated itself on his throat, but the teeth that grazed his jugular made him quickly forgive, especially when his searching fingers had finally found the man's waistband.

As the jounin kept himself distracted with his throat, the man sucking and licking his skin in a way that made him doubt if he could meet anyone's eyes on the next day, Iruka brought his other hand from the man's hair to his face and unceremoniously plunged two fingers into his mouth, coating them with saliva the best he could while panting and moaning in rhythm with the movement of the jounin's clothed cock that pressed and rubbed hard against his own. He then placed his bets, pulled his crossed legs even higher and thus forced the jounin to climb further up his body as he slid downwards. The sight of the unmasked throat hanging above him was an invitation he took and gave a long lick over the expanse of skin, relishing in the shudder and whine he was able to hear from the man holding him down. Meanwhile, his other hand appreciated the round curve of the pale man's ass as he pulled down the jounin's sweats and grabbed a handful of thick muscle while he spread it to the side. That, however, was not the reason why a surprised shout suddenly echoed right next to his ear and a deafening sound of electric wings scattered around them; a part of him that was not fearing for a heart failure savored the sensations his slicked fingers felt as they pressed, slid and teased against the sensitive ring of muscles between the jounin's pale legs. The silver-haired head hung down and an incoherent list of profanities fell from the unmasked mouth, and he pressed deeper, encouraged by the sounds and the way how the man's back curved up when a boom of floor-shaking thunder erupted around them.

What he had not anticipated was how coherent the man could still be in their situation. He had hardly time to register his fingers getting batted away from the warmth of the trained body he had been enjoying when a set of nimble, pale hands tore off his dark top and pushed him back down onto the sheets with an impressive show of strength, before one of them snuck down into his pants and grabbed a firm hold onto his straining erection. Hearing his voice crying out in response to the onslaught of tremors that made him push into the grip the man had on his cock while the first wave of release fried up his nerve ends, Iruka was distantly grateful of the barriers that shielded the small house around them. As he crashed down from the momentary high, he only belatedly realized that he had been completely stripped naked at some point, and was just in time to see how the jounin removed his own shirt, gave Iruka an absolutely filthy smirk, and then the same hot mouth swallowed him down.

He, at that moment, did not care if the feverish pumping of his hips up into the willing mouth was so shameless that even Mitarashi would blush, when Iruka bent and curved his torso against the firm press of hands that held him down while the silver-haired head moved along with the motion, egging him on when the jounin sucked and licked his leaking shaft, the devious tongue leaving burning trails all arcoss his heated skin. He felt delirious, his heart hammered against his chest hard enough to thrum through the loud decibels of lightning and waves crashing over them and the seal, its ink standing out proud against his sweating skin, pulsated with a charge of chakra that popped and crackled on time with his body's movement. It didn't take long for him to blearily notice how his right leg was hooked over the jounin's wide shoulder and a slick finger pushed inside him. The resulting white hot wave that washed over him made his toes curl and fingers dig deep into the shoulders of the man pleasuring him and his back bowed up from the bed while his mouth dropped open in a silent scream, the longer the deeper the finger pushed itself before retreating and repeating its deed.

When one finger turned into two and they flicked a spark of chakra inside him, Iruka was half-heartedly scared that he would burst a vein in his head when his mind was promptly shot to hell.

By the time his legs were spread further open and a third finger joined the fray, he was convinced that this was how his life would ultimately end.

It was an unnerving feeling, having the tunnel-vision of precise focus while the whole physical world, along with one's own body, was shattered into million pieces, Kakashi would have thought, had he been capable of thinking at that point. His instincts howled along with the screech of birds as he smelled and tasted the man whose cock was filling his mouth, the heady, salty scents of musk, come, sweat and lust invading his sensitive nose and making a permanent nest there, taunting him to move his fingers quicker and harder as his ears listened keenly to the sounds he was able to wrench out from the younger man lost in the throes of sex.

While swallowing down the aftertaste of the man's release, Kakashi moved his free hand to pull down his own pants and slicked himself with his own come that had coated the inside of his boxers when the chuunin's wicked fingers had made a mess of him momentarily. His muscles were singing in elation and his nervous system was having a field day with the abundance of chakra and lightning that danced in his vision. He released the alluring cock from his mouth with a pop, threw his caution into a blue whirlwind when he righted himself up on trembling knees, pressed the strong legs in front of him against the sweaty body at his mercy, and then pushed in with fatal determination. The body that spread around him clenched like a vice and his mind was almost shut down, along with his palpating heart, when he felt his soul abandoning his body. More on reflex than an actual thought, he angled his body, pulled out and then pounded back in, his fingers feeling every twitch of muscle from the legs they held in place and his heightened senses capturing every curse, moan, cry and unfinished word that the smart mouth panted out in rhythm with him. His mouth was slack and every breath felt like his last one as he chased mercilessly the scent of his prey, the clap of thunder giving tempo to the slap of naked skin as electricity caressed his skin with its sharp claws.

Iruka, at that moment, had given up on even trying to find out where he began and the other ended. He rode wave after wave the violent bursts of chakra and could only hold on to the fragments of reality that kept rearranging themselves in his senses; the quick gasps of the man who made him forget his own name, the scorching tracks that were left behind by strong hands pressing him down, and his own body that enthusiastically welcomed the ruthless fucking the jounin gave him. His muscles ah-ah-ah-ached, spasmed and trembled, along with his spirit that had given up the fight from the first orgasm that had hit him, and was now riding the glorious abandon of lust. His dark eyes stared at the man hovering above him, them pleading and demanding in ways his mouth couldn't, when they sought out the gray eye that drilled through his very Will of Fire and cracked his iron will in half with its burning gaze.

The twirl of emotions that pulled at his spine upon catching that sight was enough to finally tip him over the edge.

The gong of a seal rang through the air like a dooms bell, and they both fell.

After a moment of floating in darkness, Kakashi surfaced with a gasp of air and winced at the dim light that hurt his eyes. With trembling muscles, he pushed himself up on his elbows and, after a brief, muddled thought, pushed himself off from laying on top of a heaving, sweaty body before rolling, painfully slowly, onto his back. His head thumped against the cool sheets with a groan leaving his slack mouth, and he closed his eyes to enjoy the faint relief the cold air brought to his burning skin, him feeling like he had been drenched in sweat. Although considering where he was and who he was with, that was a real possibility. Tentatively, the pale man flexed his fingers and stretched his neck. Everything ached, but nothing hurt. At least not more than it had. But, he was, once again, an utter mess.

"....Oh...kami." That was all his ears picked up from the voice that groaned quietly next to him, hoarse and spent. With nothing else following the small declaration, Kakashi turned his disheveled head and was met with an expand of tan, slick skin before his lone eye.

"..You still alive?" He ventured into the dark-skinned armpit, if only to distract himself from the sight of a dark nipple his eye found on its way. A cough and a humm was given as the first response, before the body next to him shifted tentatively, and he was after a short wait greeted with a pair of dark brown eyes blinking at him over a deep hue of red coloring the high cheeks.

"...Barely," Iruka rasped and released a pained sigh as his body gave its first complaint. The chuunin fought against the pull of darkness in his vision and focused to look at the nose on the pale face. Then gradually, his cognitive processes felt brave enough to pluck themselves out from their hiding places and he took in a deep breath to see if his lungs still worked properly. Taking in the fact that the man panting next to him had yet to lighten the mood with commentary, the teacher decided to keep himself talking, if only to hold onto his waning consciousness. "...Got caught in the heat of the moment."

A bark of breathless laughter was his answer from the jounin's side, yet it was cut short with a short fit of coughs and finished with a rough groan. "Next time perhaps." There was a promising grin warming up to those words.

"Perhaps," Iruka surmised with an equally wicked grin of his own and turned further on his aching side to look at his naked companion.

As Kakashi turned his body towards the inviting chuunin, the silence around them held its breath. After a fleeting minute, the jounin lifted a teasing eyebrow and spoke. "Maa. If it helps, you can still nail me to the ceiling tomorrow."

"Oh, fuck off," Iruka choked on a snort and punched the unnervingly handsome man on the arm before he closed the distance between them and gave the jounin a slow, deep kiss, with a snap of lightning making their breaths quicken. It took some effort, but he was able to pull himself away from the soft lips without setting anything off in his system, though it was a close thing. "We should clean up before Hare returns and sees this."

Yet such was the nature of their world that it always forced them to face the consequences of their actions sooner or later, and sometimes with an ill timing.

The shadow of a figure standing over them was too late to register in their euphoric minds before the deceivingly mellow voice spoke with a rather sharp edge to it, its tone carving the words in the air in front of Hare's white porcelain mask. "Too late for that, I'm afraid."

Chapter Text

Being a medic was not easy, that was what everyone learned in the Academy. Being an active field medic in a shinobi village the size of Konohagakure was a very challenging position, and it was obvious that whoever found the courage to face that challenge was not someone to be trifled with. Being an active ANBU medic, however, was something that led many to speculate that there had to be something fundamentally weird in the individiual pursuing that career to begin with. It was usually akin to the phrase "there's always one in a family" whenever shinobi parents made peace with the choice their child made and discussed it with hushed tones. Still, they were respected and rightfully feared whenever they were seen around town, and there were always children who looked up to them as their potential role models for the future path they would be taking, and who later willingly signed up for the rigorous training.

Not many were, however, prepared to see the other side of the coin when it came to the walking oxymoron that was an ANBU medic.

They knew exactly which bones they were breaking during interrogations, and could name them to their victims as casually as discussing the weather while doing it. They knew exactly where to aim when they wanted to keep their prey alive and coherent long enough to gain information, and were calculating enough to decide how much pain would be involved in the process. They were professional killers who had sworn an oath to preserve life, and they knew exactly how hard it made for them to face their reflection in a mirror sometimes.

Then, there were those who had become infamous among their ranks.

Hare had learned early on to accept the reputation associated with their mask with a pragmatic approach.

It saved them a lot of time whenever meeting a new patient who was put under their care.

However, in one late afternoon, in a small, light gray house, they had found themself re-evaluating that reputation, and hoping that whatever gossip would later on circulate around this particular assignment they had been coerced into, it would not include the possibile double homicide which they had idly entertained in their mind while they had stared down a pair of naked shinobis, one chuunin and one bastard of an ex-captain, who had been staring up at them with a painfully obvious afterglow of sweaty, forbidden sex written all over their guilty expressions. As if the state in which the whole room and the misbehaving duo were found had not been a clue enough.

It had taken them a moment to gather their temper into a small box and shut it firmly before they had felt confident enough to find words other than borderline threats: "Hatake. Shower. Umino-san. Stay."

The addressed men had quickly understood what they had meant, and Umino had taken it admirably well when he had to wait for his turn when Hatake had showered before vacating the bathroom to put some new clothes on. The moment when Umino had been left alone in the training room, the barrier had bounced back up, without another word uttered by the silently observing medic. The two men had seemed to get the point well enough.

Now, however, after the steam from the showers had cleared off, they all sat in the setting sun of the early evening, two of them on the terrace and one behind a brand new barrier - and one out of them three was not pleased.

Iruka swore that he had not thought to relive the same kind of pressing air of disapproval from a superior after his genin days like he now did when the ANBU kept their masked gaze on both him and his masked teammate, his accomplice of the crime they both had unfortunately been caught committing.

"I do respect my oath to not harm my patients. However, I won't take shit from them, either," the medic said after a silence that had stretched longer than the snakes in the Forest of Death, their usually teasing voice laced with cool authority. Deeming that they now had their audience firmly captured, they let their shoulders settle after the admonishing words and the gloved hands pulled up their belt pouch to rummage through. They paid no mind to the other two shinobis who both experienced a short yet understandable moment of panic when they pulled out a scroll and rolled it open on the wooden floorboards.

Admittedly, having a thermos bottle and a pair of cups to pop up from it had not been on the top of the list for what might be summoned, considering the mood that Hare emanated underneath their painted mask.

The ANBU stayed silent as they opened up the cap, poured dirty green liquid into the awaiting cups and then put one in front of Kakashi and then lifted one towards Iruka. The chuunin sensei gave a puzzled look at the barrier between them before he understood, and with an embarrased blush passing over the scarred face, the dark-haired man scooted back a couple of feet before the ANBU put down the cup on the floor, opened the barrier with their hand seals and pushed the cup in the room before closing the wall with a ripple once more.

Gingerly, Iruka moved back closer to the barrier and took the cup, felt a small relief at the sliver of warmth emanating from it onto his skin and thus helped him to ground himself into the horribly embarrassing situation, and then glanced at the masked jounin who had taken the cup into his pale hands and was looking at the quiet medic. The look in the gray eye was as bored as ever, if one did not know where to look for signs of distress. Kakashi was clearly running through their remaining options, and possible demise, in the hands of a peeved ANBU medic.

"Maa, is this-"

"Just drink it, Hatake." The words were curt as the medic spoke and crossed their arms on their armored chest, but Iruka was curious to detect a sliver of exasperated camaraderie in their tone. "Umino-san as well. Drink up."

Before Iruka could wonder if he was witnessing some odd nostalgic moment between the two elites, Kakashi gave him a glance, shrugged, pulled down his mask and downed the drink in one.

"Not like that," Hare corrected calmly when their former captain almost choked on a mouthful, the ANBU making a suble point in not moving a muscle to help the coughing jounin.

Iruka nodded at the advice and took a testing sip, if only to keep himself from inhaling the drink upon seeing a flash of the face he had just moments ago seen between his thighs. He could forgive himself for needing a few breaths to discard the itch from beneath his skin before swallowing. The drink was tangy and bittersweet, with only a hint of floral notes, and a salty pinch of minerals from the surrounding mountains. He blinked the lingering, lewd memories away from the dark corners of his mind when his academical pedantry kicked the door in and put the lights back on. "Mountain medicine?"

"Maa," came with a few coughs from Kakashi's side as he pulled his mask up before his former colleague could answer, "Hare's the best field cook there is. Knows everything about plants. Fitting for the mask."

"Flattery was never your forté, senpai," came the even response from underneath the painted mask. Nevertheless, there was a small amount of pride in the way how the addressed medic straightened their posture and adjusted their armored arms still crossed over their chest plate. It was also the movement that drew in Iruka's gaze to give a better look at the medical professional who they had found themselves stuck with.

One rarely paid attention to the details other than the painted masks when it came to their enigmatic elite ranks, which was a given since that usually was the last look one got when crossing paths with them. Furthermore, considering how the past couple of days had gone for them, Iruka could excuse himself for being preoccuped with other things in his mind. Yet now, when the dust had settled, the academy teacher gave his curiosity the permission to take in the fact that the medic had meticulously made sure they gave out no personal details to anyone; their armor was well-kept, the black clothes underneath pristine and the ANBU tattoo the same as with everyone else. Nothing extra had been added anywhere, and nothing had been left our either. Yet, there was a small, fleeting detail that caught the chuunin's keen eyes: the short, wavy auburn hair that was slicked back, almost invisible over the rim of the decorated mask when viewed from the front, which had a few wide streaks of gray highlighting it. Realizing that, no matter how small footnote it was, made his instincts raise the alarm when he came to the unnerving conclusion that the ANBU medic had intentionally made it easy to distinguish them from the crowd if their observer knew where to look; either the elite was foolishly daring or they were a force to be reckoned with. As he snapped his gaze down back to his herbal drink and willed his memory to delete such an observation from his mind, the academy instructor vehemently hoped that the studied ANBU did not catch him staring when they gave a glance in his direction, or caught onto the tremors of elemental misbehaviour that traveled across his skin.

Hare sounded pleased that there was at least one person who followed the instructions and drank the drink slowly when they spoke: "Just a small concoction of mine. It should ease possible inflammation."

The modesty in those words was lethal in its deceit, Iruka decided, and he hoped that the unease that gnawed at his nerves was not as visible on his face as it felt like when he concentrated on his drink under the ANBU's unwavering attention. Suddenly the tone the medic had used with him earlier, as well Kakashi's behaviour around his colleague, started to make very much sense.

The way how the air between the three shinobis turned down a notch in its warmth was rather expected, when there came a thoughtful hum underneath the porcelain mask. The medic was the first to speak again: "I'm also starting to understand why Tsunade-sama picks up her own medicinal bottle whenever Shizune-san brings up this mission." Hare rarely lost their composure whenever they had been working with Kakashi, but judging by the way how the ANBU added some extra enunciation to their words when they turned back to look at his masked person gave the impression that it was getting very close to that. "You could have died. You both, in fact. What in Shodaime's name convinced you that it was a good idea, Hatake?"

"It was me, actually." Iruka would have felt a bit better about correcting the medic when his mission partner was wrongly accused, but the sight he caught when Kakashi pinched the bridge of his masked nose, closed his lone eye in defeat and briefly shook the silver-haired head made him rethink his strategy. Moreover, the way how the medic finally turned to properly look at the chuunin behind the barrier was serving a brief reminder on why he was usually not the one handling the Black-Ops mission desk. Having a quick tongue could be a fatal personality trait in their business.

"...I'm sorry?" The shock was barely audible in the ANBU's voice, yet the tilt of the porcelain mask as they stared at the academy teacher spoke volumes. Then, they turned back to their former captain who sat next to them and a gloved finger was pointed at the chuunin, as if the medical professional was not sure if they had heard the man correctly and needed a second opinion. "...He did this?"

The sharply rising eyebrow and the tightening of the strong jawline when Iruka first glanced at the finger pointing at him before he turned to stare at his masked mission partner gave volumes worth of a whole library.

Kakashi, on his part, would have been grateful if he had been left in peace with his paperbacks.

"Well," he then started and gave a faint last cough at the annoyed looks he was given by both shinobis staring him down, "you are aware that he is known as a barrier expert among his rank."

"He what." The flatness of Hare's non-question was dry enough to evaporate the remains of their drinks. Then, realizing that it would be more on point, the medic turned their head once again to stare long and hard at the dark-skinned man seated behind the barrier. "You what."

"Saa, I think I'm starting to see your point from our earlier discussion, Kakashi," Iruka offhandedly commented and flicked a flicker of lightning off his fingertips as he observed the mental gymnastics happening before his eyes when the ANBU tried to play catch with their conversation. His respect for the experienced field agent did not exclude his distaste for when it came to higher ranks underestimating him, which many had learned the hard way.

"You were supposed to be the smart one here, Umino-san," Hare accused with some disbelief still coloring their words. "You do realize that the chance to get down this barrier is now zero until you sort this mess out," the frustrated medic then pointed out and suddenly cut through the air with their hand in dismissal when their senpai was about to open his mouth: "I'm not the one who made the mess here, Hatake, so save your breath. I'm the one who has to deal with the damage control." Then the forming lecture stopped, as if the Black-Op had stumbled upon an unpleasant thought. "Oh my. Tsunade-sama is going to end me, isn't she."

If Kakashi heard them correct, that would be the first time he could hear a sliver of despair in the mellow voice. He almost felt sorry for dragging his former teammate into the mess, but he supposed that Hare had it coming, with all the teasing he had to endure from them. Universe had a funny sense of justice in that way. That didn't mean he would make it any easier for his current tormenter. "Not if we play it smart."

The answer from the ANBU was swift like a cut with a kunai: "I will not lie to my superior officer, Hatake. I might as well declare myself a missing nin right here and be done with it."

"Well, not outright lie, per se. Just...omitting some facts from your report for now," the jounin suggested with a shrug, which in Iruka's opinion was just plain evil in its nonchalance.

Neither of them could see it, but they were both able to imagine the obvious twitch that Hare's eye gave to the scandalous suggestion, based on how their voice almost found a new key on the scale. "Have you completely lost it? This is not some random A-rank mission!"

"I'm starting to think that I need to reschedule the annual review on mission reports after all this is over," Iruka noted, more to himself than anyone else present. Then he pointed at Kakashi and could not believe himself saying what he said next. "But he does have a point."

"The point of what, exactly? That you self-diagnosed yourself with horniness, then self-remedied your condition by literally fucking yourselves within an inch of your lives, and now you want me to look the other way?" Hare snapped with an uncharacteristically sharp tongue, which would have been a surprise even for themself, had their fingers not been so itchy for the scalpel in their belt pouch.

Not letting the unexpected turn go by without grasping for an opportunity, Kakashi fixed his former senpai with a masked smile. "Maa, maa, Hare, calm down. You've always been one of the smartest in the bunch. I was always glad to have you covering my back."

"Wha- no." A gloved finger was poked towards the masked nose. "I will not be swayed this time, Hatake. And you," the ANBU pointed with their other hand at Iruka who stilled like a deer in a jutsu, "keep your hands where I can see them." When they had both nins by the tips of their fingers, the ANBU took in a cleansing breath and held it for a beat. As they let it out, the porcelain mask nodded down, and the elite went deep in thought.

At the end of both pointed fingers, the disciplined chuunin and jounin exchanged glances, neither of them quite sure if they should locate the nearest weapons at hand - which, regrettably, did not include the two pairs of tonfas that the medic had confiscated during their showers.

Then, as if reaching a conclusion, the fingers were pointed upwards and brought together as the ANBU's head snapped back up and they took a calming breath before speaking. "Now then. Let's recap. So you fucked. Nobody died. The seal is still functional," there was a faint trace of a question in their voice, and the hidden eyes turned to observe the younger shinobi who then pulled up their shirt without any prompting and presented the seal still intact on their chest. The ANBU gave a small thoughtful nod at that. "Alright. Still there in one piece. Tsunade-sama doesn't know. I regrettably do know."

"You could have waited until we had put up the barrier. You would have been blissfully unaware," Kakashi offered with another dismissing shrug, which, in Iruka's uncharitable opinion, seemed to do the complete opposite in toning down the pissed off mood of the highly educated thorn on their sides who narrowed their eyes behind the paintwork.

"The whole thing had Godaime's signature on it. Whatever you did to break the thing was just scratching and re-writing it all over with yours. I would have noticed it, so there would not have been any hiding of whether or not something had happened in my abscence. Besides," there their voice gained the familiar slyness which Iruka admitted to have not missed at all, "you're lucky it was only me who stumbled upon that sight in the training room and not the poor Hyuuga-san who was here the last time."

Upon hearing the mention of the last time they had been caught cum-handed by their village's medics, Iruka experienced an electric shiver of unease when he remembered the look on Tsunade's face. "If she finds out she will eviscerate me."

"I'm sure she'd treat us rather equally with that punishment," Kakashi drawled out and then cocked his head in a thought as he regarded his fellow ANBU. "So do you want to help us or not? You oath does-"

"My oath is the only thing that is currently keeping me from breaking off your mandible and carving a spoon out of it, Hatake." Hare answered back with the practiced rudeness of someone who has grown accustomed of handling troublesome patients. "Besides, it has nothing on terminal idiocy. So try that trick on someone who has not met you already."

Despite everything that was going on between them three, and no matter what opinions he may had formed about their current warden, Iruka had to admire the way how the field medic kept their village's celebrated bastard in check. He could maybe invite them over for drinks one day. Once he could look them properly in the eyes again, that is.

"Right then," Hare then continued, with a much more composed tone, which made Iruka in turn stiffen in dread when the hollow eyeholes turned towards him once more. "Do I even want to know what caused this? You obviously had my weapons involved in it, and I'm wondering if I should get them disinfected to be safe. So I'm placing my bets on the fact that Hatake over here riled you up, in more ways than one, and then things turned messy."

"Um," Iruka began, and was unfortunately ill-prepared to face such ruthless scrutiny so soon after getting his mind blown spectacularly into the stratosphere. "Kind of."

"Kind of?" The tilt of the mask was not fooling anyone, anymore than the deceivingly light voice coming underneath it.

"Iruka needed some advice with the Gates, and we discussed that," Kakashi cut in, if only to save the sweating chuunin sensei whose cheekbones were starting to resemble ripe cherries with the deep blush taking them over.

"And then what, decided it's better to show in practise?" Hare gave a dry glance towards the legendary Copy-nin, only slightly disappointed that the man could not receive the full force of their ire.

"No, it was all my doing," Iruka hastily put between the two jounins who were starting to create some friction between themselves, if the thunderous glare that Kakashi shot at the other masked elite was any indication. "Like Kakashi said, I needed some help, and then we got into a debate - I was not thinking."

"Clearly." The medic huffed in palpable annoyance while glaring at their former bane of existence, and then clicked their tongue in what could only be considered as vindicated amusement. "I was going to tell you both to take it to the mattress at some point, but since you've already done that -"

"Not helping, Hare," Kakashi groaned and found companionship in the way how Iruka rolled his dark eyes in obviously suffering manner.

"No, but I get what I can before getting thrown into exile," Hare commented offhandedly and waved their hands as if to discard the heavy topics off their shoulders. To Iruka it all started to resemble a duck  just letting the water pour off of its back. The trained pedagogue found himself idly wondering how the ANBU's old teachers were faring mentally. "Anyhow. Based on this, it would seem that I get better answers to my questions by not asking anything. On hindsight I maybe should have just left you two where you were and come back in the morning. Yet," here the mellow voice turned much more official, almost toneless, than what Iruka had heard before. It seemed that the jovial rabbit-masked doctor had finally decided to drop the act and deliver some bad news. "I won't prolong my stay in this house any further after tomorrow. There was a reason for my visit outside, as Hatake already knows."

At the mention of their outing, neither of the masked shinobis were surprised at the concerned quietness that dispelled the building animosities between them.

The fleeting pause, and the light drum of gloved fingers, belied of the thoughts that were milling in the ANBU's mind before they continued, knowing that they would not be interrupted: "The ANBU who was here before, Cat, will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. He has spoken with me and Tsunade-sama about the incident that happened here, and the events leading to it. He will be given another tasks in the village, and is put under surveillance for the time being. I will act as his supervising medic for that time." The pause before Hare proceeded was not needed, but they took it as an opportunity to categorize the changes in the scar-cheeked man's expression before they went on: "He wants to meet you before that, Umino-san."

Iruka felt faintly relieved to be well-trained enough to keep the cup in his hands from falling when his body turned numb.

"Do you want to meet him? He will have escorts, and we will watch over the scene," Hare spoke again calmly, albeit with a tone that belied that they had caught onto the sudden change in the academy teacher's body language. It was expected, granted, but the medic still adjusted their seated position on the floor, if only to make it easier for them to dispel the barrier and start treating the chuunin if the possibility of a panic attack became reality. They did not mind the subtle flare of chakra that spiked the air around one other worried jounin in their company, but they did take it into account. "Hatake can stay with you, if you so choose."

It took a moment, though Iruka wasn't sure how long, for him to rewind his mind back on track. He opened his mouth and a cough escaped him before any words did, and he only passingly noted how Kakashi glanced at him when he rubbed the scar over his nose. "I, uh...I would like a moment to think."

Hare nodded, as if they had expected that from him. "Of course. We can discuss this in the morning. In the meantime," They then lifted the thermos bottle in their hand, and none of the earlier seriousness in their tone could be heard when they asked: "Seconds?"

The dusk veiled the landscape into its darkness, and like the buildings around it, the small, light gray house quieted down for the night. Its two temporary residents, however, found it hard to settle in for the coming sleep. Hare had left them for the night, under the excuse of making rounds in the neighborhood, even though it was clear that the medic, despite their act, knew when a third wheel was not appreciated.

Iruka laid on his futon, his hands folded behind his head and gaze fixed upon the darkening ceiling above, lights switched off, while he counted his breaths. They had enjoyed the supper that Hare had made them while they had finished their medicine drinks in a tense silence. In the chuunin's opinion, the ANBU showed unexpected discretion in the way they had handled the situation after dropping the proverbial explosion tag right in the middle of them three. Iruka knew they were not ignorant towards his unease, at least judging by the way the medic had kept a keen eye on him when they ate and then, just before leaving, giving him a small paper envelope with their insignia stamped on it. 'For evening tea', was written on it, plain an simple. He knew the content without opening the letter, knowing to expect a discreet pouch with his name on it.

He had not taken the sleeping medicine. Not before he was willing to face the new morning.

"I can hear you thinking over there," said the low voice from the dark bedroom where Kakashi had settled in, the jounin's clear words belying on him being also awake still.

"I know," Iruka said, without taking his eyes off the shrouded darkness above. "I can hear you listening. You're breathing too evenly."

"Here I thought I was fooling you," came the response, with a small smile warming up the spoken words. "Not that I am surprised. You have a good hearing."

"Comes with the territory. Being a teacher and all that," Iruka joked back, if only to distract the shadows that crept closer with the waning light. Then, as the smile disappeared from his lips, so did the lightness in his voice. "...Do you trust him?"

If his odd question surprised the older man, the jounin did well in concealing it. "Why do you ask?"

"Otherwise you would have sent him through the wall when you punched him." The dark-haired chuunin let his words dispel over him and disappear into the night, as he tried to find a suitable way to continue the path of thought without stumbling while he patiently waited for the older man's reply.

"He's a good shinobi. A good man to have in a team," Kakashi spoke after a quiet pause, his voice not telling of anything in particular, and yet Iruka knew the man had found the page he had found himself standing on. "I do trust him. More than he might trust me, come to think of it."

"You seem...close. At least from what I have noticed," the teacher ventured on, as if picking ends of the threads he needed to tie up in order to make sense in the loose ends.

"Maa, he would be appalled to hear you say that," the jounin's voice drawled from his side with a surprising lilt of dry humor to it.

It was enough to make the dark-haired teacher relax his tensed muscles and turn his head to look into the shrouded darkness that covered the trained killer from his eyes. "You're getting on his nerves the same as mine? Is there anyone in these lands that you have not pissed off?"

"You're getting off the track here," came the equally teasing reply from the elite assassin.

"Saa, just admit that there are other reasons than just your professional skills that landed you in the Bingo Book," Iruka countered back with a grin crawling up on his shadowed face, despite the topic they were dancing around. Then, as soon as he had said it, another thought made him wonder. "I guess he is also there."

The silence from the other man's side was telling. They let the quiet confirmation to the speculation pass them by, and both men took in the sounds of the critters and crawlers that came out into the night air, while they mulled over the era in which they both lived in.

"...I should meet him," Iruka concluded, and averted his gaze from the direction of the jounin's presence where he had been staring into. "Not just for my own sake."

The shift in the air told him that the silver-haired shinobi had moved on his bedding, probably to turn the lone gray eye in his direction. "No one will force you."

"That's exactly why." Iruka commented back and rubbed his scarred nose for a moment before he caught himself. "I won't start fearing my own shadow at this age."

The lacking reply was all he supposed the jounin needed him to hear, calm and measured. In some sense it did help.

"I may also meet him again after all this is over, with or without mask. I would rather have a clean slate for that when the time comes," the chuunin then continued, with a more hesitant tone than his previous statement, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he should put a question to go with it. "Like I said, I would hate to condemn a man for something that was out of his control. We were all fools."

The shadows in the bedroom stilled for a breath, and Iruka was about to curse himself for a poor choice of words, when there was a sound of movement, accompanied with a soft hum, from the older man's direction. "He would appreciate that."

"...Would you appreciate that?" Iruka then asked, only a part of him worried about the possible reply for his question.

The darkness gave nothing away, but the teacher was fairly sure he heard some warmth in the man's voice when the jounin finally spoke: "I would."

The chuunin nodded to no one in particular upon hearing that, and then settled to glance over the ceiling again, only to come to the conclusion that he barely saw farther than his own scarred nose in the faint moonlight that cut a silvery line between the gap of the closed terrace doors. The minutes ticked forward, and his fingers tapped their rhythm against the back of his head when he stared unseeing at the void slowly swallowing him.

"You're still thinking," teased the jounin's voice once more. Only this time it came closer to the open bedroom doors, right outside the barrier.

Iruka turned to look in the direction of the older man one more, and he took in the dark figure that sat on the floor, only barely visible in the dim light cast over the open doorway. He could not see the man's masked face, but he surmised that it made it easier for him to pay attention to other things. "Did you just move your bed over there?"

"Figured it was easier than shouting across the room. No need to compete with the loud thoughts in your head," Kakashi drawled, and made sure that the younger man could at least hear him shrug.

A pillow thumped against the barrier before some shuffling and muttering followed, and after some huffing, the dark figure of one chuunin pulled up into the moonlight with his futon and dropped it right beside the buzzing barrier. The man plopped down on the bedding, and after some fussing on the misused pillow and twisted duvet, the sharp-minded teacher gave a pause in thought. "Hold on. I should not be able to come this close to the barrier when you're that near."

"Took you long enough. You're getting slow," Kakashi remarked, and this time didn't even flinch when the same pillow bounced off the barrier before his mismatched eyes.

"Asshat," Iruka grumbled without any considerate heat, and then grabbed his mistreated pillow underneath his head when he laid back down. "But I guess you already have it figured out. Let's hear it."

"Did you notice anything different in the last match, well, apart from the obvious?" Kakashi asked and glanced over the laying man before his eyes. He was somewhat relieved that it was a bit too dark for him to see properly the dark-skinned firecracker's body spread in front of him. Made it easier to focus on matters at hand.

"..Well, you did turn the tables quite quickly after the first half, when we, uh. Wait," Iruka blinked and then turned to look up in the approximate direction of where he estimated the elusive older shinobi to sit. "You got more out of it than just that, didn't you."

Kakashi nodded. "Correct. My chakra reserves feel a lot more charged than what they had been. I suspect that we had it partially wrong during the day, when they opened your seal. It wasn't the kind of control that Tsunade-sama was after that you actually had to let loose." The silver-haired jounin rubbed his head while gauging the possible sounds for reactions from the other nin. What they were walking into was not an easy field to chart, as their previous attempts had proven so far.

"In other words, I cannot beat your ass without also trying to get your -" Iruka translated slowly and let the unfinished thought circle around his head. He was fairly relieved that the jounin could not see the heat gathering onto his face. "Oh."

"It is only a hyphothesis, at this point. That's what was missing from the first matches. Not so much because of the new seals, even though they do play a factor, but because we had both cut off something personal from our interaction. Like a good shinobi does. Like we had not been doing for the past couple of weeks," the masked man continued and noted absently some faint heat blooming on his own pale cheeks. "It does fit with what Tsunade-sama said back then. That we cannot just cut off some factors of the equation and expect the result to be what we want."

For the first time during the night, Iruka found himself considering on knocking himself out of it with the offered medicine, if only to escape the conversation. Alas, he knew when he had been outrun. "So what do you suggest, we just have a go at it whenever we match against each other as long as we apologise to the Hokage in advance about the possible voyeurism included?"

There was no need for anyone to see what sort of expression crossed the masked jounin's face when the alledged village pervert hummed the way he then did. "Knowing her, she might even -"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Hatake."

"Maa, Iruka," the ex-ANBU chuckled at the scandalized groan arising from the teacher. "We may as well admit everything when she comes tomorrow. You do remember what Hare said? About the barrier."

"What, that it had Tsunade-sama's -", there followed the kind of silence that a man makes when his very foundation crumbles beneath his feet. Then, before Kakashi could get too worried over the sudden absence of noise from the easily flustered man who had made his reputation his everything when it came to their professional lives, there started a strange string of hiccups coming from the teacher's direction. Soon enough, the hiccups turned into snorts, and the snorts into outright giggles.

It didn't require eye contact between the men to make them both erupt into barely contained laughter, as they both faced a fact that had patiently waited for its cue. The strain of the long, arduous day finally dropped away from their shoulders as they laughed into the darkness surrounding them, when everything that had happened, both absurd and dangerous, broke the final straw in their tired minds.

Kakashi was the first to recover from the fit and watched with teary eyes at the chuunin, a man he had slowly begun to know better during their unorthodox mission, who had curled up on his side in the moonlight and was letting out all the pent-up stress that had been accumulating within him. After what seemed like several minutes, the teacher choked on his chortles and then heavy, yet somehow lighter, breathing took its place as the only sound in the darkened rooms. Amidst the panting, the tired academician turned onto his scarred back once again and gave a wide grin underneath his palms that covered his burning face from the curious ray of moonlight that came to check up on him. "Oh, kami. We're dead tomorrow."

"Absolutely," Kakashi found himself agreeing with a masked grin of his own. "But maybe Tsunade allows you to nail me into the ceiling before the execution."

"You definitely belong in the Bingo Book."

"For all money's worth," the masked shinobi teased with his low voice, only to be greeted with pensive quietness from the younger nin after the echoes of their laughter had died. Realising that there was no comment forthcoming from his mission partner, the silver-haired shinobi decided to poke the sudden, strange tension that was creeping over the chuunin's side of the barrier. "...Iruka?"

"...Nothing, I...uh." There was no mistaking the floundering silence that sometimes tattled on the teacher whenever he was conflicted. "..I..well. I just..I do appreciate your company. In case you thought otherwise."

There rarely were occasions when Kakashi did not know how to respond. He found that this was one of them, but he was slightly more surprised about the fact that he was not alarmed by it. "...Do you want me to put on the light?"

The shuffling sound that came from the man shaking his dark-haired head against the pillow was a very clear answer. "No. No, I think..I think this is better. Sometimes darkness is the best way to see clearly." There was a heavy question there, in the way how the words were spoken.

Kakashi decided that maybe this time he could forgo the riddling remarks and let the younger man form the words in peace.

There was the faint sound of crickets that disturbed the silence when the dark-haired teacher gathered his thoughts on his futon. When he found them, it was only a matter of finding his tongue. "I, uh..I don't know what Hare has told you, or if you have noticed, but..well. I have come to..enjoy your company. During this mission."

Kakashi nodded; more to himself or to the chuunin, that he didn't care to discern.

"That seemed like something I needed to clarify. In case you're still listening, considering our history," Iruka teased half-heartedly and grinned weakly at the faint huff of a laugh he could hear from the bedroom. "We weren't exactly friends before this mission started, as everyone knows. But it does make you think."

The thoughtful teacher could easily imagine how the lone gray eye would narrow on the masked, pale face, when Kakashi responded finally: "...What does?"

Well, Iruka found himself thinking, taking the leap was always scary before the feet left off the ground. "If, given time...if this would have been the outcome. Whatever this currently is between us."

The quiet contemplation from the shadows spoke volumes, but it did make the chuunin feel that he wasn't the only one going for the jump. "...What made you think that?"

"I notice things by profession. Granted, this would be easier if it was a professional problem," Iruka sighed and rubbed over the scar on his nose once again, this time not caring if it showed. "So it does make me wonder, if there was already something, and I just didn't notice it. Or if there was indeed nothing, and this is just a result from the mess with the seals. There's still too many ifs to my liking."

The sharp-sensed tracker that he was, Kakashi wasn't quite sure if this was the direction where he ultimately would like them to head in this discussion. "..I know by experience how hard it is, when personal gets mixed with professional," he then spoke, his words counted and weighed by his low voice. "But I do also know that a mere fabrication would be a lot simpler to expose than what we're currently experiencing. It would have a solution plainly visible, and it would be easy to dismantle. So uncertainty is not necessarily a bad thing, right now."

"You're not worried?" Iruka was slightly surprised at what he was hearing. "To be fair, you have not struck me as someone who likes things uncertain."

"Not when it might be the cause of my death, no," Kakashi admitted, and then continued before the younger nin could comment: "But some amount of uncertainty is expected whenever human emotions get involved. They might call me a sociopath behind my back but it doesn't mean that I could not pick up social cues when they are thrown at me. Especially with the kind of vigor that you have shown over the past few days."

"..Well, when you put it that way," Iruka smiled in the dark, despite himself.

"So you're right," the jounin then spoke, slow and considering. "The dark does help to see more clearly." Kakashi knew he sounded perhaps a bit more serious than what he was going for, but he moved on.

"...Saa, I thought we were past the riddles." Iruka hummed and then rose up leaning on his elbow to look straight into the darkness behind the barrier between him and the man he had slowly begun to understand during the passing days.

"So you were thinking when you broke down that barrier." The taunt was obvious in there.

"I don't know if I should feel flattered or insulted if you bought that feeble lie," Iruka huffed with a bravado he knew he did not possess, and then fixed a long look at the black shadow that hummed teasingly before him. "Not that I was sure about myself at that moment. If anything, it was a gamble."

The voice of the jounin was humoring the situation, but they both knew better at that point. "Did it pay off?"

"You tell me," there was a challenge laid out, in the chuunin's voice. Kakashi could almost visualize the raised eyebrow to go along with it.

"Then I'd say it did," he then said. No matter if his instincts shouted at him for deciding to go with such plain honesty, the jounin felt refreshing lightness soothing his mind after his words were met with the pause of silence from the other man. It had been a while for them to talk like this, he surmised, and it seemed that he had not been the only one to miss it.

The jounin's answer had not been much, just a few words, and yet Iruka felt it flip his world around. Not seeing the mismatched eyes made it possible to focus more on the words floating between them and the meanings between the lines they had been crossing over the past hours, but it did not make it easier for him to say what he had been turning around in his mind for a few days already. "...Why put the broken shard in my tea box?"

"...It seemed important, at the time. In its own way." The reply was curt, dismissive even, if one did not hear how the older man's breathing had stopped for a moment. "Thought you might appreciate the gesture."

"I did. Still do," Iruka admitted, and only passingly felt embarrassed at the shy rush of heat that spread on his face. "...That was the first time when I actually stopped to think."

"Hopefully not, though it would explain a lot," Kakashi ribbed mostly by reflex, if only to keep his own pulse in check when the uncharacteristic softness in the loudmouthed bureaucrat's baritone hit him. The pillow was swung at him, almost like an afterthought, before it thudded against the barrier and flopped back down.

"You're not one for grand gestures or elaborate confessions, are you," Iruka countered and did not fight the silly grin growing on his face, since kami help him, he was, for once, rather sure that he did not want to let this one go. The sudden lack of reaction to his provoking words from the jounin was a sobering moment for them both, and the teacher took a deep, quiet breath before relaxing his shoulders. He then sat up more properly and gave a passing look at the moonlight playing with the dust in the room behind him, not yet meeting the gaze he could feel burning on his skin through the chill night air.

"...Yet here we are," Kakashi finally said.

"Indeed we are," Iruka agreed, and only then turned to smile at the barrier before him, and the stoic man hidden behind it. No matter the delicacy of the situation they were in, he would not discard an opening when he saw one.  "Never knew you could get flustered." The sharp, surprised bark of laughter erupting from the jounin's side was all he needed to know that he had caught the man, the renowed legend that many only discussed about with vague phrases or inane gossip. A man who had shown him, in his own, discreet way, how he cared. Perhaps that thought was what made Iruka choke back on something else than just his own laughter, when the low bass of the jounin caressed the air by his ears and warmed up a spot in his chest.

"There's a first to everything, I suppose," the man in question said with a genuine grin evident in his voice, his presence not showing if he had noticed.

"There is," Iruka said before he even gave himself time to reconsider the implications of his quick answer, or how his voice wavered. Then, there fell the anticipated lull in conversation between them, the two men who had gone through a world of pain and confusion before reaching the event horizon where they both now stood, finally equally, on the same edge.

"Speaking of firsts," Kakashi then began, "you notice what has been absent."

"I have noticed," Iruka said, if only encouraged by the confirmation from the experienced shinobi. "It will surely remedy that when the morning comes."

"In other words, when I piss you off again," came the usual retort from the silver-haired man who clearly had founded his reputation on everything but his charm, in Iruka's opinion.

"That would be it, unless you decide to prove me wrong," the teased teacher replied with a smirk, if only to calm down the beating of his heart. "It would not be the first."

"I guess the feeling is mutual." There was a sharp intake of breath in the darkness where Kakashi knew the younger man was.

Perhaps there really was a first to everything.

There were moments between people sleeping within close proximity when there was no longer a need to talk, but no-one wanted to be the first to fall asleep on others. Yet sometimes, there also was the natural progress of things that everyone knew when it came to the veiled hands of sleep, the succumbing feeling that enveloped the consciousness into nothingness and hushed all the remaining thoughts silent, putting them on hold for the new dawn that evidently would bring solutions to them.

With the night taking over the village around them, the two men, one eccentric jounin and one pedantic chuunin, laid down on their beds, and held onto the unseen contact through the barrier that cut them off from reaching one another. Their breaths mingled with the light steps of sleep that wandered into the rooms of the humble, small house, and the heavy bodies of air that had walled up the spaces between them slowly, gradually, melted into wisps of air and snuck out of the nooks and crannies of the building.

Sometimes darkness did help to see things more clearly.

Chapter Text

Mornings, in Kakashi's opinion, had always been the most ambivalent part of his life, when it came to his own path of shinobi. There were mornings when opening up one's eyes seemed too hard task to accomplish, leaving him usually snoozing well past the time when he was supposed to meet up with his Terror Triplets. Then there were mornings when he had suddenly become aware of the fact that he had been staring at a sunrise from atop the Hokage Mountain, lost in thoughts and memories — or the chapters of Icha Icha. Some mornings were better than the others, especially those when he was able to face his visage in the reflection of the bathroom mirror, not flinching at the regocnizable features of the fallen master of Hatake's house; he who had become just a faint ghost in the legends of Konoha — when the mourning for the past had given way to cautious hope in his village's, and by extension his own, future. When the scar across his eye had not felt like a stigma of a failed comrade. He had slowly begun to notice, day by day, that the number of those mornings had started to rise in comparison to what had been before; there was a suspicion creeping on his mind that there were certain reckless rookies he ought to consider being the reason for that.

Then, there were mornings when he found himself staring at an intruder when he had opened the kitchen door leading to the backyard of his current accommodation, and wondered if strangling his fellow ANBU with a length of clothesline could be considered pre-emptive self-defense.

"Good morning," Hare announced from their seat on the porch, with a steaming cup of coffee held in their gloved hands, and thus matching the passing observation Kakashi had made upon happening the smell of roasted coffee beans the kitchen. "Slept well?"

"You slept here," Kakashi stated without any preamble, since it would take a fool not to notice the bedroll neatly packed next to the wall.

"It would have been rude to intrude," the medic said pensively. "But you should have noticed me. Your condition is worse than I thought, senpai."

"I am aware," the jounin drawled, the brewing annoyance clear in his voice.

"So I heard," said the mellow voice behind the painted mask. They then turned to face the sound of doors to the training room opening behind their back. "A morning of good news, perhaps."

"I see you're all up and ready, Hare-san," Iruka joined the conversation, the chuunin not even looking at the other masked nin standing nearby when he focused solely on the chipper chip on his shoulder sitting before him.

"Good morning to you too, Umino-san," Hare said and lifted their coffee cup. "You need some water for your tea?"

"If that takes you off our backs then yes, please," the dark-skinned teacher muttered before he went to pick up the water boiler for the ANBU to take into the kitchen. Once the medic took the boiler in tow and went to fill it up, Iruka turned to look at Kakashi. "They were here last night, weren't they."

"It appears so," Kakashi sighed and then glanced at the other man on the other side of the barrier. It was hard to decipher what Iruka was thinking this early in the morning, if the weary look on the man's face could be from lack of tea or sleep, or merely the lack of sane shinobis around him.

The following question from the teacher did help Kakashi to settle for an answer. "Are they always like this?"

"I have a reputation to uphold, Umino-san. Would be foolish to let myself slip at this point," the ANBU's voice suddenly stated behind Kakashi's back before they sidestepped the jounin. "The coffee won't stay hot for long, senpai, you should help yourself." They then glanced at their former captain who seemed unusually undecisive. There came a faint sigh underneath the porcelain mask. "You know me better than that, Hatake. The cup is where you left it."

Once Kakashi had taken his leave to the kitchen, the water boiler passed through the barrier and Iruka started his own preparations for morning tea, searching for a pouch of dark assam. He had a feeling that delicate greens or whites would not be cutting it this time, but something stronger that helped him to keep his temper in check.

"Did you sleep well, Umino-san?" Came a question from behind him where Hare had taken their earlier position in the sunlight.

He definitely had made the right call for the tea. "I did, Hare-san," he said while measuring the leaves in the sieve and then adding water into his cup, keeping his hands busy in order to help him to ignore the false nonchalance emanating from the masked elite on the porch. "Though I did not need the medicine in the end. Would you like it back?"

"Ah, no need, you can keep it for the future. You might still find use for it." There was a faint, odd tone added to the last bit, which made Iruka glance over his shoulder at the medic who had spoken. There they sat, basking in the sunlight and warming their palms with their cup like every other time they had been pestering them during their house-visit — and yet. A trace of anticipation, or tension even, in their posture was suddenly visible, when Iruka realized that he had learned to look for it.

He probably should have expected it. Taking off the sieve and lifting the cup in tow, he stood up and looked at the masked figure outside the barrier. He noticed Kakashi had yet to enter the terrace, taking longer than usual on his quest for coffee. "I had time to think about your suggestion, Hare-san," Iruka cautiously started, not exactly knowing why he himself felt uneasy to face the same topics in the morning light instead of the blue shadows of the night. "I would like for you to arrange the meeting with the ANBU who was here before."

There came no smart retort back, only a nod from the medic, before they turned their head, more out of politeness than anything else, to look at the other masked jounin who stepped onto the porch from the kitchen. "I am glad to hear you say it, Umino-san. A wise choice." Then they put down their coffee, stretched their back and stood up before nodding at both shinobis in their view. "I'll inform Tsunade-sama about it. Until then," they said with a brief salute to their mask, and then they disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Then, there were only two of them, standing in the morning light.

The silence held, and then dissipated with a sigh, when Kakashi turned to look at Iruka who stood behind the wall of fuchsia. "Are you alright?"

The air left him in a sharp huff, breaking the tension in his shoulders and lungs when Iruka heard the older man speak, making him aware of having lost himself briefly in thoughts. To ground himself again, he took a sip of his tea, concentrating on the strong taste until he felt confident enough to answer the gaze he felt on him. "I suppose. I'm starting to see why ANBU medics are notorious among their ranks."

"If it helps, they do have their moments. Well, few and far between, but still," Kakashi amended with a shrug. After a brief pause in thought, he gave a glance to their surroundings, and then made a gesture that almost had Iruka spit out his second mouthful. The morning air felt brisk against his exposed jawline, but it was nice to offer a grin to his mission partner without constantly feeling the stretching of a fine weave against his cheeks. "As do all of us, I gather."

He stared. Kami help him, he could barely feel the tea cup warming his palm when he stood and stared at the morning vision he had right then been unexpectedly exposed to. A cough left Iruka before he excused his misbehaving eyes and forced them to look somewhere else, and took a long sip of his tea, fervently hoping that the heat he felt spreading over his scarred cheeks was not as visible as it felt. "At least now your Icha Icha was not involved in getting you out of the bed," he then commented, kami knew why, but he felt he needed the distraction.

Seeing the jounin laugh, the bright sunlight catching onto the pale jaw and scarred cheek, and the rarely seen lips, made him feel warmer than what his morning tea could ever achieve.

"Maa, I guess it's true," the ex-ANBU agreed and nodded, casually as ever, while drinking his brew. "Though surprisingly, Hare has yet to touch my collection in order to do that. They have other means to make it happen." Like actual physical manhandling and the nerve-wrecking sadistic stream of bad puns and teasing riddles whenever they felt like their fellow soldiers could use a bit of a smile on their gloomy faces. The chuunin sensei did not need to know any of that, however, and Kakashi noted that neither did he, at that moment, when he looked at the flustered man over the rim of his cup. There rarely were such sights that made him consider waking up earlier than what he just then was presented with: the dark, slanted eyes still showing the aftermath of the palpable surprise the man had experienced and now the consequential floundering of where to look next, with the rush of red he spied spread over the scarred cheeks. As if testing out his theory, the jounin gave a fleeting rub with his knuckles against his chin, and sure enough, the dark-haired teacher sounded like choking on a mouthful again.

"Oh for kami's sake, stop that," Iruka coughed after barely swallowing his drink when he had once more been caught unawares by the other nin's actions. He had a growing suspicion that the man knew exactly what he was doing, seeing that it did not take much of a jounin to notice that his own mind was wandering elsewhere. "It's too early for you to start riling me up. I need my breakfast before that."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that," Kakashi commented with a pointed smirk and a leer traveling over the younger man. "It seems that something is getting a rise over there."

His own laughter surprised Iruka himself, if he was honest, considering that the jounin was hitting the nail on the head with that one, and he was loathe to admit it. He let himself grin at the other, only barely registering the flash of teeth he gave when he replied. "That would be my fist in your face in a few seconds if I'm not seeing you put your jounin ass to work in the kitchen, pervert."

"Ah yes, watching me bending over the fridge—"

"Shut it."

Kakashi chuckled on his way back in, after giving a cheeky salute and a wink to the chuunin teacher who he left sputtering after him, while he pulled his mask back up. He wouldn't perhaps mind waking up to this kind of mornings, in the days to come.

Behind the jounin's back, Iruka pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes against the sunlight that filtered in hues of crimson around him. In silence, he focused on the aftertaste of his tea, while for the first time he also noticed what had been unexpectedly quiet in the back of his mind for the whole time, the familiar buzz of electricity having faded away into blissfull nothingness. A small, cautious smile tilted the side of his mouth when he mulled over the observation.

Perhaps it indeed was a morning of good news, for a change.

It had not taken long before Shizune accompanied Hare upon returning to the small house, her stating upon their arrival that Tsunade would be joining them in a moment. Sure enough, Shizune steered Kakashi firmly back out form the kitchen once they saw how lost in his thoughts the jounin was becoming while handling a sharp knife, and Hare took over the preparations for a hearty breakfast while their colleague let Iruka finish his other morning routines in the background and gave the chuunin instructor a brief health inspection.

The masked medic had just placed the plates on the tray for Shizune to take out onto the porch, when the small household was filled with the presence of their village's leading shinobi, Tsunade herself, who appeared in the middle of the backyard with an impressive gust of wind, it matching the infamous stature she wore just as easily as the serious expression on her youthful face. She stepped over to the porch where there stood in attention two of her four subordinates, stopped, squinted at the barrier with her amber eyes and then turned her attention to the kitchen. "Is that coffee I smell over there?" The Hokage inquired and then walked off into the kitchen, paying no heed at the two stunned shinobis left staring after her.

It did not take long for the first short-hands to form on Iruka's side when everyone's backs were turned to him and the masked jounin standing next to him.

She noticed.

Undoubtedly.

Why say nothing?

Do you want to ask that?

"Ask me what?" Tsunade asked when she stepped out with a cup of coffee in her hand. Black. Kakashi felt the fine hairs on his neck to rise up against his turtleneck's fabric.

"Oh! Tsunade-sama. Just wondering if you, uh, slept. Well. With all..this," Iruka found himself rambling, and kami help him he did not need Kakashi staring at him so obviously like that.

Once again, their imposing leader stopped in her steps, looked at them both steadily and then took a sip of her coffee. "Have you two already had breakfast?" She then asked, as if she did not see how visibly her trusted soldiers were sweating under her calm gaze.

"Uh, no, Tsunade-sama, we were waiting for Hare to come back," Iruka answered, more out of reflex than anything else whenever he was addressed by a higher-up, before he caught himself.

"I see." Was all that was said back to him, and then their Hokage looked over the sunny yard before taking another sip.

True to their impeccable timing, Hare came out with a pot of coffee in their hand and an assortment of fruit, fish and rice for Iruka in the other. "Now then, breakfast. Seconds, Hatake?"

More out of habit than acting on actual need, Kakashi let the field medic fill up his cup and then observed them to open the barrier to let Iruka take in his portion before closing it up again. There he stood, cup in his grip, his shoulders lax and back slouched, as the very image of the lazy, lanky jounin he had meticulously build up for himself, and it did nothing to hide the fact that he kept his keen eye on the equally casually acting Hokage who took part in the offered breakfast with the other medics.

It was, Kakashi supposed, the kind of morning when waking up at all was not worth the headache.

As if sharing his thoughts, Tsunade let Shizune fill out her cup while picking her pickled vegetables. "So, I heard you have reached a decision," she started after one moment had turned into dozen under the bright sunlight, and looked sharply at Iruka. The dark-haired chuunin had barely touched his food, and was taking a rather long time to chew, which now stopped altogether when the man in question snapped his attention to her. Upon catching the short-lived alarm crossing the scar-cheeked face, she almost felt sympathetic towards the teacher. Almost. "Cat will be here soon. Do you want us to accompany you when he arrives?"

It took him some effort to swallow the piece of pear he had been worrying in his mouth, but Iruka managed. "If that is no trouble, Tsunade-sama."

"Nonsense," Tsunade offered with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Considering everything that has happened so far, I'd say this is the least troubling thing that we would face on this mission. It is a smart decision. Not an easy one, mind you, but they hardly are."

There was a trap hidden in there, somewhere, but Iruka did not want to go around searching for it. Judging by the look he caught on Kakashi's narrow, gray eye, the jounin felt the same. "I appreciate it, Hokage-sama."

"Good. You should," was all she said before focusing back on finishing her coffee, leaving the discussion at that.

As she watched from the corner of her eye the way how the two men, troublemakers in their own right, exchanged quizzical and somewhat alarmed glances between them, and then noted how her trusted ANBU-medic stiffened in their posture while pretending otherwise, she was barely able to hide the amused, albeit slightly vindictive, smile behind the edge of her cup. The exasperated look she noticed Shizune giving her made her coffee taste much better.

The sun made its course over the expanse of the city around them, and Iruka paid no attention to it as he waited for the axe to drop on his neck.

He felt odd kinship to his students at that moment, when he stood in attention by the threshold of the training room and waited for the inevitable tell-tale sign of swirling leaves to happen in the yard. The current of electricity that had once again started to travel along his nervous system was not helping to ease off the accumulating anxiety he felt in his body, it pulling at the seal underneath his shirt and pricking its way down his spine. He surmised that to be expected — not welcomed, but at that point he had learned to accept the fact that he had no say in the matter.

"No need to fret, sensei," Tsunade noted calmly next to him, giving a glance at the silent teacher staring at the mundane landscape like someone who wanted to get lost into it, the gathering static from the man making strands of her blonde hair to rise up slightly. "His escorts have been briefed for this occasion."

A sharp cough belied of him getting caught, and Iruka nodded to nobody in particular when he heard the offered comfort in his leader's voice before he snapped out a spark of lightning from his fingers, not noticing how their leading medic took a small, measured step to the side away from him. "Yes, Tsunade-sama."

Then, after a moment's wait that felt like a small eternity, a breeze lifted the grains of sand, and there he was, white mask gleaming in the sunlight, with the painted, red streaks standing out in stark contrast.

The masked ANBU stood before him, the armored body held completely still and eyes behind the porcelain mask stared forward, as if the elite could not quite discern if he was allowed to relax when flanked by his two teammates who had appeared in his company. Considering that he also undoubtedly felt the intense stares on his back from where Kakashi and Hare stood, them two observing the small entourage from where they both leaned against the high fence almost casually, it was perhaps rather expected. He kept his gloved hands by his side, visible to everyone watching, while waiting for the permission to move. After Tsunade gave a brief nod, the trio of ANBU operatives stepped over to the terrace, and two out of them three let the third step closer to the barrier behind which stood one silent chuunin, stopping at the sign of his leader nodding once more.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Tsunade then said to everyone present, and with an encouraging look given to the ensemble of shinobis, took her path to the back of the room where she settled to stand next to her trusted aide, leaving the two men to converse in peace.

Not exactly knowing what was expected of him, Iruka gave a fleeting nod of thanks to his leader, not taking his eyes off the armored man before him. He let the seconds tick by, sensing the coiling knot of tension that pulled tight between them and made the unfamiliar element of thunder to thrum inside his chest, before he understood that he was the one who was given the intiative. "Good morning, ANBU-san. Cat, I believe, is your name?"

The ANBU's shoulders lifted and lowered, as if he had been holding his breath. "Good morning, Umino-san. Yes, that is correct." There was a pause of thought, and a considering, cautious tilt of a masked head. "You may use it, if you wish to, Umino-san."

Well, then. Perhaps there were things he still did right. "Thank you, Cat-san. Then you can call me Iruka, if you want to." Of course, it always was difficult, to hear oneself speak out what had only been entertained in thoughts so far. "I heard what had happened, when you were here the last time. How are you feeling?"

The man shifted in his posture, but knew better to keep his hands lax by his sides. "I am better - Iruka-san. Nothing life-threatening, I assure you."

They both knew what had been left out, but by mutual agreement, they let it pass between them. At least, that was what Iruka told himself, when he continued onward, pushing through the unknown territory both he and the man in front of him had found themselves to be in. "It's a relief to hear that. I suppose you have been briefed on what the situation has been here?" A very small nod was given as his answer. Well. It seemed that he was to act on their both behalf if they wanted to get anywhere in this awkward conference. "Could your guards consider taking a step back?"

If the two ANBU operatives were suprised by the sudden request directed at them, the look given to them by Tsunade from behind Iruka's back was all they needed to know that the sensei who stood behind the barrier was within his rights to address them as such. They gave each other a glance and then took a measured step back, leaving their ward to stand, painfully exposed, alone on the terrace.

For all Iruka could see in the man's posture, the lone assassin appeared quite unsure on how to feel about his personal space suddenly lacking the crowd of his colleagues. That was all the reason for him to direct the man's attention back to their discussion, to give him something to grasp onto, no matter how uneasy he himself felt at that moment, under the attention of their audience, while the scar on his back itched with electric shocks nipping at it. "...You should know that I do not hold it against you, Cat-san. Whatever happened, in here, on that day. I hope you can accept that."

"I..uh." For a moment, that was all they heard from underneath the white mask, when the man fell silent. Then, as if something finally gave in the conflict that seemed to happen within him, Cat did what not many lower ranks could claim to be on the receiving end of: the ANBU bowed down. "...I..was worried. I had overstepped, more than what is appropriate, what is expected of my rank, and I cannot erase that stain from this mask. But to have you forgive me, that is more than I can ask for - more than I deserve. Thank you, Iruka-san."

Iruka knew there was nothing he could do to hide the surprise he felt, when he stared perplexed at the back of the head of the repenting Black-Op. Not one to reliably evaluate if he had just made the situation worse for the man by prompting such an uncharacteristic response from him, his eyes sought out another elite, a man he had felt staring at them two for the whole time from his spot by the fence, and met the gaze of the lone, bored-looking gray eye that was peering at the scene over the edge of the black mask. Sharp and attentive, was the look he could describe given to him when Kakashi noticed him looking, and still, there was a notion of approval to what was observed — an undercurrent of relaxed relief, which made Iruka blink. Then his attention shifted back to the elite who straightened back on his side of the barrier, and only then did he become aware of how the armored shoulders dropped down and the shielded legs took on an easier stand, knees bending ever so slightly. As if whatever knots the man had turned himself into had given way to the familiar persona who Iruka remembered from the weeks before that one disastrous morning in the very house they were having this meeting, the threads of dread unraveling by that one simple gesture.

If he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure what to make of it. Instead, he focused on something else. "Uh, about the tea box you gave me. I can return it to you, if you wish so. Regrettably the cup is no longer usable, but it is otherwise undamaged. I have enjoyed having it."

Upon hearing the chuunin's suggestion, the armored man made to wave his hand before he seemingly remembered where he was, so he chose to shake his masked head instead. "It was a gift, Iruka-san," he said. "I intended it for you to keep."

"I see. Then I will," Iruka said, and offered what he hoped to be a genuine smile at the man's apparent kindness, and at the trace of warmth he could detect in the other's voice right then. Nevermind them facing the unfortunate circumstances surrounding the mission they were on, the dark-skinned academician surmised that he had somewhat managed to ease the thoughtful man's concerns for their future interactions.

"I assume that you have been given the information about my situation," Cat then continued, his voice steady and anything else except confident.

"Yes. I hope you will make full recovery. Until we meet again," Iruka replied, and took note of the suprise passing through the ANBU's body language at his words.

"I..yes. Until we meet again," Cat echoed his words, as if testing the phrase behind his mask. "I hope you success with this mission, Iruka-san. Both you and Hatake-san."

There was an odd sound, somewhere between a snort and a cough, coming by the fence where Iruka knew two out of four elites were loitering, that caught his attention briefly before he decided that whatever was happening between those two was not worth of considering, so instead he gave a tentative nod to the masked elite who seemed to have been fully briefed on the matters beyond the mere mission outlines. He was somewhat proud of himself for being able to look at the white mask in the eye holes after that revelation. "I'll keep that in mind, Cat-san."

With nothing else to add, the ANBU bowed curtly once more before nodding at their Hokage who appeared to Iruka's side, and they both watched when Cat turned and walked over to the yard. He was greeted there by Hare who then nodded at the two guards and, with one wave of a gloved hand given to Iruka and their Hokage, the medic made the hand signs and all four disappeared into thin air.

When he looked at the empty spot on the grass, and then the lone jounin standing arms crossed by the high fence, he felt rather faint suddenly. "What now, Hokage-sama?"

There came a hum of thought from the formidable woman next to him. "We'll proceed with the mission, once Hare returns. Our goal has changed, but we should be used to that already. The seal stays on for the time being, until we see that you're better adjusted to the gates."

"...What about the barrier?" He then asked, part of him feeling morbidly curious as to what this particular question would bring up. The other part was vehemently trying to convince him that he had not survived this far in life by poking what should be left well alone.

"You should observe your students more often, sensei," Tsunade commented mildly and then gave an amused yet strict look at her subordinate, "they're much more convincing in their play pretend. Not that it matters," she went on without waiting for the other to speak, "but I am impressed. Not many of my shinobis would dare to break their Hokage's personal barrier and then play the fool. I imagine Hare was furious when they found out."

Iruka was sure him paling could be seen across the Five Nations. "...Tsunade-sama," he then said, when there began the all-too familiar tingle of elemental misbehavior inside his ribcage, it pushing up to his throat and sinuses.

"Yes?" The Hokage asked, and raised a cautious eyebrow at a string of blue light that zipped right next to her ear.

"Forgive me, but I'm about to sneeze—"

After the green jacket had been doused down in the bathroom, Hare returned once again to the house, and they all settled back onto the terrace, sans one member of their group who sat embarrassed alone, enclosed in his own bubble. Tsunade took a long drink of the sake bottle she had found from one cupboard, although not before Shizune had pointedly poured into four cups from it, and then sighed contendly. "Now then. Where were we — ah yes. I would wish that despite the apparent drive to get at each others throats, you could spare some thought to our efforts for keeping you both alive." The shinobis around her gave equally wary looks at each other before everyone seemed to reach a mutual agreement not to interrupt the oncoming spiel from their village's leading medic. Not that Tsunade was about to start giving into unruly patients' shenanigans at this point in life anyway. "I gave your situation some thought, once I was able to sit down with yesterday's report. It seems that we're getting on a right track with your recovery, but there are still some things that worry me. So for now, we will limit the fights for two matches per day, all of them supervised so we don't get to repeat what happened last time, and then you will rest. Iruka's seal will stay put until said otherwise, and Kakashi will report to us whenever there are significant changes in his chakra reserves. Am I understood?"

"...Maa, about that, Tsunade-sama," Iruka heard Kakashi start carefully, with an unfamiliar hesitation added to his words. The chuunin couldn't really blame the man, since he was one safely behind the wall right then. Considering the way how Hare turned their masked head around in what could only be described as disbelieving terror for what their former captain was about to do, he was fairly sure that the ANBU medic was considering of joining him. "Now that you mention it, there has been some...development."

"Oh? Let's hear it." Tsunade put down her bottle and straightened her seated posture, but everyone present noticed how she kept the glass object well within her reach. Perhaps for more than just one purpose, considering how aerodynamic in shape the heavy bottle in question was. "I sincerely hope you have some good news for me."

"Well. Kind of," Kakashi said, and scratched his masked cheek in obvious display of discomfort to anyone who knew the man well enough.

Five very delicately painted fingers closed around the bottle's neck, when their village's superior shinobi drew in a deep, calming breath. "Kind of, Hatake?"

"Well, you see, the chakra situation has gotten better, I have actually received a good amount back, but, uh, the thing is—"

"I've never known you for stalling," Tsunade cut through the jounin's nonsensical riddling like a scalpel through an expanse of skin, "but my guess is that it has something to do with the vandalized barrier over there. So spit it out, brat."

For all the time he had known the man, Iruka had never seen the Bingo Book Killer and the Man of Thousand Jutsus try to become so small in the face of his leader's rising ire. If anything, usually the man went completely the opposite, so for him to witness the rising red over the edge of the black mask and the cold sweat that broke out on the man's brow, it was no wonder that he felt the need to be the one who threw himself into the line of fire. "Tsunade-sama, we don't think the current approach to our situation is helping. We, uh, noticed that there's a crucial thing we have failed to consider in our, er - conditions?" He could not believe hearing himself to end a report with a question, and kami help him the way how the woman turned to look at him, amber eyes narrowing and darkening steel-hard, he wasn't sure if the barrier was there to protect him should his Hokage decide to lift a finger.

"What kind of condition are we discussing here, Umino?" Tsunade's voice had grown hard and demanding, and the way how she used his family name told Iruka that quick thinking would be in his best interest right then.

He refused to acknowledge the stares he felt on him from both of the masked assassins who sat rooted on their spots, in case it would make him reconsider his words, so he kept his eyes looking straight past his Hokage's left ear. "...Well, uh — should we say...er...intimate?"

They all watched, two unruly patients, one wary medical nin, and one meddling ANBU, how their leader gave a slow blink at what she was hearing. Then, the hand holding the sake bottle lifted it swiftly to the painted lips and the woman took in one long gulp before setting it back down. She took in a breath, held it, and then burst out laughing, to the complete surprise of the shinobis observing her. Like a string that had finally snapped after being strecthed too tense for too long, she laughed, rubbed her forehead with her free hand, covered her tear-filled eyes before her chortling turned into bubbling giggles, almost on the side of exhausted hysteria, before she covered her mouth and gave a couple of hiccups when the abrupt eruption of noise died down. "I see," she choughed and then pushed down a fit of snorts, "so you are saying that Kakashi got his chakra back not by fighting but fu—"

"Tsunade-sama!" Shizune snapped, scandalized, and thus failed to notice that Iruka had cried out exactly the same at the same time with her.

As for one lone jounin who watched it all happen, Kakashi contemplated the path of his life and took a resigned sip of his coffee. Next to him, Hare did the same.

"Now I understand why Hare is so keen on ending this assignment when given the chance." The blonde Hokage took a couple of breaths more and wiped her eyes, not paying attention to the sound of one of her leading ANBU medics choking on their drink behind their porcelain mask. "That must have been one hell of a vision they had walked in on last night. Not like the one I had the privilege to witness the other morning. That was enough to make my ANBU to start drawing the short stick whenever someone has to check up on you." She waved a hand to her face, cooling down her cheeks and giving herself a moment to compose herself before she narrowed her eyes and gave a shrew smirk at the silver-haired pest who had made her sometimes consider a swift change in careers. "No wonder you are having troubles saying it, brat."

At the sight of the pale man slightly hunching his shoulders and looking away to the side, her smirk softened into a small smile, before she took a look at the sunny backyard, with a light sigh leaving her.

All five of them sat in contemplative silence after that, four avoiding the eyes of the others when staring at the one who sat and smiled at nothing in particular, when what had been said in those few moments lingered between them.

"Very well," her voice was the usual calm as it ever was when Tsunade spoke once again, and made to stand up, noticing how Shizune followed her lead as she dusted herself off and picked up her slightly burned green jacket, along with the half-empty bottle. "I think we have other matters to attend to, Shizune. We have a village to look after."

"We do?" Shizune asked before she caught onto the look she was given by her superior.

"I cannot force you to put into words what you don't yet know." Tsunade directed her attention back to those she was leaving behind, the two men of different kinds who had stood up upon seeing her making her departure. Proper and professional as always, despite their misgivings. "I also know that you're both stubborn enough to resist any further interrogation on this matter, so I will take my leave for today and let you sort it out before tomorrow, though kami knows how that will end. I expect to be greeted with good news when I come see you in the morning." She turned and gave them a smile over her hands that went through the signs for teleportation, with Shizune standing by her side. "Don't fail."

A swirl of leaves marked her exit, and then there were only three left, once more, in the quiet house.

”Oh my, for a moment I thought I was done for," Hare breathed, relieved, under their mask and gave their shoulders a slight shake, as if dismissing unwanted shivers.

The drawling voice from Kakashi was much more blunt than what Iruka had heard for a while when the jounin turned his attention to the medic. ”Why are you still here?”

”Ah, I was tasked to supervise those two matches between you two that Tsunade-sama mentioned, before I take on my next task. Check that the seal is up to date with your condition, you know how it is. Though I don’t know if I should just disband the barrier altogether and jump the fence, rather than expose myself to whatever it is that wafts in the air between you two.”

”Yes, you should.”

”That is harsh, senpai.”

No matter how entertaining listening to the two elites bantering between each other was, Iruka decided to run things along, if only to give himself something else to think about than the electrified muscles spasming on his legs, when his mind was still reeling from the surprisingly insightful, if slightly teasing, words of encouragement from their Hokage. ”I, uh, had a thought. Is this assignment, er, time sensitive?”

There was a small amount of confusion and a good amount of suspicion in the way how the masked medic looked at the chuunin sensei before they gave a very wary hum at the man. ”As long as it is done within the day, no. Why?”

”Then – well. Could you consider giving us, say, two hours?”

The silence of the elite field operator was so complete that the other two shinobis could swear they felt their whole presence vanish from the porch for a second. When Iruka was already starting to feel that they did not appreciate his venturing idea, the ANBU spoke, albeit with a voice that told that they were not sure about themself just then. ”An hour. That’s all I’m willing to do. No more than that.”

Despite of the uneasiness he then felt, Iruka didn't resist the small smile that crept on his face. ”That would be enough. Thank you, Hare-san.”

A heavy sigh, followed with a faint groan, was all they needed to know that the ANBU knew they stood no chance in this negotiation, and did not want to prolong the defeat either. ”Send me a chakra flare when you’re — well. Ready to have company again, I suppose. No dead shinobis when I return, otherwise I will find a way to resurrect you both and beat you to death, my oath notwithstanding. Are we clear, Umino-san?”

”Most definitely.”

”Hatake,” the medic then said. ”Go fetch my pouch from back there, will you. Umino-san, a moment on your side.” Then they opened the barrier while Kakashi went to fetch what they had pointed at by their bedroll, and went inside to Iruka’s side. With a gesture, they motioned for Iruka to lift his shirt, which the chuunin did promptly. After glancing over the seal, the medic added couple of new chakra lines to the design with their fingers and then watched as they connected with the rest, the modified seal glowing for a moment before it all settled back into black lines crisscrossing the tan skin. With a nod, the ANBU let Iruka pull his shirt back down and they went back to the terrace where Kakashi waited them with their pouch, closing the barrier behind them. They took the belt bag from their former captain, rummaged through and then handed over a rolled up parcel to the pale jounin. ”Use it wisely,” they then said.

Much to his mortification, Kakashi had immediately recognized the standard-issued parcel he then held in his hand. He also knew that the teacher who stared at the same parcel was more than familiar with the style of packaging revealed to them.

"I'll see myself out," said the medic and disappeared with a poof of dust before either of the men could protest the scandalous addition to their two-man household.

"...Is that—"

"I'll be right back," Kakashi cut the younger man before he could utter any more words the jounin was sure he did not wish to voice out during this particular morning, and took a short trip to their shared toilet to put the offending offering somewhere so they could promptly forget its existence for the time being.

That did not, unfortunately, deter Iruka from connecting the rest of the unmentioned dots, and an echo of a disbelieving, and somewhat peeved, wordless cry of outrage traveled after him inside the house.

This morning may prove to be one of those kinds for them. Again.

The sun ran its course above the light-gray house, nestled neatly in between the buildings surrounding it, and there stood two men in silence, one looking at the other inquisitively. After a moment, Kakashi spoke, when it became evident that the younger man in his company was not finding any way to breach the topic he could see written clearly across the scarred face. ”What is on your mind?”

”Nothing in particular.” Iruka then offered with a tentative smile, and he sat back down by his side of the barrier before looking at the jounin standing above him. ”Thought that I might as well sit with you, for now.”

”...Maa. Alright.” Kakashi shrugged and then joined the other man on his side of the floor, minding his refilled coffee cup as he took his seat on the wooden boards.

The moment held, and then Iruka found his voice. ”...We never had the chance to settle the wager we had.”

That statement was suprising, and Kakashi was momentarily taken aback by the sudden turn of discussion from what all had happened just moments before. It seemed that the chuunin was taking them on another route, for whatever outcome the man had set for their conversation. ”What wager?”

”The one about the seal book," Iruka mused, more to himself than anything, as he decidedly kept his eyes on the lone gray eye looking at him. "I never did manage to solve it.”

”Well, I wouldn’t say that," Kakashi supposed and rubbed his masked chin in brief thought. "There’s still days left with this mission. Unless you think that the book and its seals are no longer applicable in this situation, considering what it has become.”

”Precisely. I have no doubt that Tsunade-sama could still think about something to add to the book, but as we stand, I have lost the bet we had set. You’re free to collect your wager, then.”

"Ah, yes, you doing something for me if I win, was that it? I could call it later, if that is all the same to you." Then, a small thought crossed Kakashi's mind, and he narrowed his eye in consideration for what he was starting to suspect. There was a rather specific tone of voice Iruka had settled on, now that he started to listen to the man more carefully. A rather determined, for the lack of a better word."Or is there a reason why you decided to bring it up right now?”

As it was, the jounin was greeted with an unwawering gaze from the other man beyond the barrier. ”I would prefer if you called it right here.”

Well, then. "Any suggestions, considering that you thought about it?”

”Nothing, no. Wouldn’t be proper if I told you what to do with it.”

Wouldn't be proper, eh. There was something brewing there, Kakashi was sure of it. He glanced up and put his hand on his chin, as if considering in earnest. ”Well. I do have one thing in mind.”

The way how the tan man leaned closer to the barrier was way too interested, in the jounin's opinion, to be anything except confirmation for his suspicion. ”Let’s hear it.”

”Maa, there’s this rather enticing chapter in Icha Icha Violence that I have been wondering — I’m kidding, sensei. You can stop glaring at me like that," Kakashi winked at the other man as he observed the all too familiar rush of red appearing on the teacher's scarred face. "Unless you wouldn’t mind, of course.”

The look Iruka gave to the insufferable bastard was, by any account, far from how he had been eyeing the other just a few hours ago. ”Why am I not surprised, really. I gave this way too easily to you. Should have known better.”

”Then you should have also known better than to try to avoid my question," Kakashi tsked and then pulled down his mask, which, he had noticed, was a rather sure way to pull Iruka's full attention to him. Not that he minded the consequential blush that always came with it. "I'd rather hear your reasoning for this before making any decision."

Iruka, on his side, was rather surprised that his mental groan was not drowned completely with the enthusiastic alarm that rang awake his rising libido. Not that damn handsome jawline again. "What has gotten into you suddenly, pulling that thing down the minute when I try to concentrate?"

"On the contrary, it seems that your concentration has never been better," Kakashi drawled back with a wink, knowing full well how much of an ass he was being right then, but the following indignant sputtering from the younger shinobi was well worth it. "And you get to stare at it until I get some answers. So out with it, what brought this up?"

"Has anyone ever told you just how evil you can be when the mood strikes you?"

"To be honest, I'd rather be striking up some other kind of mood right now, but you're making it hard for some reason."

"Why, I—" Iruka stopped himself just before his temper got a rise of him and he felt the distinctively, painfully familiar pinch of electric talons on his shoulder when a chirp echoed next to his ear, the older man's taunting voice knowing exactly what nerve to push. Well, shit. "No. We're not doing that again." There might have been something in his tone that the other shinobi seemingly caught on, since there was nothing else coming from the jounin who sat there looking at him, fully exposed visage in view. Tan fingers rose up to pinch at the bridge of the scarred nose when the chuunin contemplated in silence for a moment, trying to find his precarious balance once more, before he felt confident enough to start again. "There was something in what Tsunade-sama said. It got me thinking."

Kakashi blinked slowly at what he heard in between the lines there. Ah. "Of us sorting things out before tomorrow?"

After taking a deep breath, Iruka let it out with a nod. "Yes. That."

"I don't think sorting out the wager for our bet is the first priority to deal with, if you don't mind me saying that."

"No, but some conversations need a starting point in order to get somewhere in the end," Iruka said with a shrug and then set down his empty tea cup. "Couldn't think of a better way to go at it, considering our common history. Although it is connected to what I am trying to get at here, so I'm not completely off the game yet. Well. That is kind of the point."

No matter how genius he had been accused of being, Kakashi wasn't quite sure if he was following the other's line of thought right then. "What, exactly, are you referring to?"

"How we should treat this game that we play right now." There it was, out in the open, when he heard himself say it, and Iruka refused to let his eyes turn away from the man in front of him. "Of course, considering how many different games we have already started, the book bet being only one of them, it is not a surprise if we approach this as such. We are two participants in a dangerous scenario with multiple factors changing all the time, we have a time limit, a set of rules to follow, and a common goal to reach. What else could it be, at this point?"

"Maa. When you put it that way, sure, I can see that it could follow that definition, of sorts." Kakashi said cautiously and then cocked his head to the side, thinking. "However, I thought we had dealt with this already. What made you come back the steps we have taken so far? Has something changed?"

A humorless smile found its way to Iruka's face, and he could not fault the other man for it. "That's the thing. What has not changed, Kakashi? I have no control over my body at the moment, not to mention my own head when things fall out of place, we are facing increasingly unstable circumstances the further we continue with this Gate experiment, there's now a fully packed field sex kit in our toilet cabinet, and I am sorely tempted to try and break this barrier again, just to put it into its intended use. Unfortunately, I'm quite sure that Hare has blocked me from attempting it, with whatever it is that they did to my seal before they left. What I mean with all this—," Iruka spoke and found himself leaning very close to the rippling barrier before him, his eyes fixated on the small mole next to the pale man's unmasked mouth that had dropped open slightly, as he continued: "—is that I would prefer calling this anything else than a game, but right now, that is the only method that I can utilize in order to make some sense of it. I need a focus, and all these loose ends are not allowing it."

Deciding to side-step the obvious in the monologue he had been given, for now, Kakashi pulled his jaw back up and tapped it with his finger, his thoughts running a mile a minute. The teacher had a point, albeit a very complicated and obscure one, if one looked at the situation with that kind of view. "Well. I have been missing the coffee you made for me before all of this happened," he then said into the tense silence that had encircled them, unraveling the coiling thread with his calm words before it could pull too tight.

The blink he received belied of the other's surprise at his sudden change in direction, before the smart bureaucrat caught onto his wayward thought. "..You want me to make coffee for you after all this is over? You sure?"

Now that he heard the other say it, he was sure. "Yes. I think I am. Would that be agreeable?"

"Oh. Well, uh — yes, I suppose it is." The smile that then appeared on the chuunin's scarred face was a very distant cousin to the one that had preceded it. "...Coffee it is, then."

"Speaking of," Kakashi then offered to no-one in particular after he forced himself to stop staring, "I suppose I need to change into a more proper outfit for the day, if we want to get this over with. You can send the flare to Hare, if you like."

"Ah, I think it's better if you sent it. Just in case," Iruka replied with a vage gesture towards his chest when he watched the other man to stand up from the floor. "Wouldn't want to give them more reasons to ring the bell for house-visits."

A laugh broke out before Kakashi could catch himself, a part of him surprised about the change in the ambiance between them two when he looked down at the man who answered his gaze from the floor. The chuunin kept his eyes on him, not wavering or floundering like he had before. Perhaps that was why an idle idea gave him a pause, and the jounin found himself crouching down, his nose almost touching the barrier separating him from his mission partner, his adversary, his — well. Partner in the game, as it was. He grinned at the thought, and his grin grew when he watched the myriad of thoughts passing over the younger man's expression, those he could read and those that escaped him for now.

"...What?" Iruka asked, somewhat halfway alarmed by the gleam in the elite assassin's lone, gray eye and the unsettling grin on the pale face. It would take some time to get used to seeing the man's full expressions.

"Maa. How do you feel about combining two games into one?"

"This is an insane suggestion, Hatake. Even by your standards."

"Maa, Hare, I'm sure you have been given worse than this by me, surely."

"Not at this level, no. I'm surprised that Iruka decided to go with it."

"Actually it was him who gave me the idea."

"Why in Shodaime's name would Iruka want to try this? He's not that desperate, is he?"

"I'm standing right here, Hare-san."

"In fact, that makes it even worse," Hare said, not paying heed to the annoyed chuunin glaring at them from behind the barrier, and threw their armored hands up in a universal sign of someone running well out of patience when facing their former captain. "Why toy with danger like this? What benefit to this case would you get by trying this?"

"Let's just say, Hare—" Kakashi drawled, half amused and equal amounts annoyed at such pestering from the medic, as he tied a thin red strand onto the waistband of his standard uniform slacks ,and the chime of a silver bell rang clear through the air, "—that sometimes the danger is worth the reward. I'm ready when you are."

"There's no use trying to talk you out of it, is there," Hare said and, almost resigned, offered a pair of tonfas to the pale jounin standing by them.

"You set the ground rules already. Two matches, both supervised, seal stays active." Kakashi rolled back his shoulders and tested his grip on the weapons before turning to wink at his senpai. "Yet you failed to set the method. It is only natural for me to tweak that a bit."

"Fine. Your funeral." The ANBU clicked their tongue underneath their mask, half of it just for show, but they did not drop the sharpness in their focus when they finally turned to address their other patient who had been patiently waiting for them to finish preparations on their side. "I remind you, Umino-san. I may be a medic, but I'm also an ANBU. I will treat any threats to my best abilities, patient or not. Is this clear?"

If Iruka felt nervous about the barely masked threat, he hid it rather well from both members of the elite. "Understood, Hare-san. I'll do my best."

"Of course, should you attempt to Lotus Hatake-san's ass again, I'm not objecting to it." The ANBU shrugged and then tapped their former captain on the shoulder. "Since he's clearly asking for it."

The gray eye rolled, as it had so many years before, whenever Kakashi had been on missions together with the masked medic. "Your devotion to your profession is admirable, Hare."

"My professional devotion has nothing on your pathological penchant for self-destruction, senpai," Hare muttered under their breath and then went through the hand seals to open up the barrier. They calmly noted how the jounin next to them collected his focus the moment when the barrier rippled and vanished, but they pointedly stepped between him and the other man before they walked cautiously inside the training room, where there stood Hatake's current opponent. The teacher had given space for Hare to step into the room, Iruka's tonfas and one small silver bell in tow, and now the dark-haired man followed the ANBU with a keen look on his scarred face. Before reaching the man, Hare stopped and gave a look at the chuunin, assessing like any medic would when dealing with a dangerous patient. "Can I proceed to give you your supplies, Umino-san?"

"Yes, please," Iruka replied with a nod and held out his hand. He took the tonfas and the bell from the masked medic, and made to attach the red string onto the waistband of his slacks. Then he tested the tonfas in hand, deeming them suitable like last time, before giving a small, approving smile to the observing ANBU. "Everything seems alright. Thank you for this, Hare-san."

"I like their strong ale in the Eight Distric izakaya. You owe me, Umino-san." Hare huffed, clearly somewhat disapproving of the current set-up but also reluctant to throw a wrench in their former captain's plans, and then they took their way back outside the barrier. As they stepped out, they glanced at the pale jounin waiting for his turn to enter. "I'll interfere when needed."

No matter how huffy the medic was, there was the disctinct toneless note that Kakashi discerned in their voice - barely masking the professional curiosity the ANBU was trying to contain. Hearing that, the jounin smiled with his eyes, knowing how ticked it could make his former teammate. "Maa. Let's see how it goes." He stepped inside, and then nothing else existed for him except the man who stood before him.

Iruka stood still, his gaze following every step that the infamous Sharingan-user took inside the training room. The tonfas were a familiar weight and shape in his hands, the extension of his arms, and the silver bell dangled by his hip, chiming ever so quietly as he shifted his weight and moved his legs into the guard position, his upper body following in tow, facing his opponent. His shoulders lowered and pulled back, his chin dropped down, and he waited.

All that he observed, and Kakashi could admit to himself, he approved what he was seeing. No matter the hastily planned guidelines and vague outlines he had been able to pitch to the younger man, it seemed that the chuunin sensei was effortlessly following his train of thought. It took one to know one, apparently. "Are you game, Iruka?"

"I'll take whatever you give me, Kakashi," Iruka replied with a small, sharp smile appearing on his face.

"Maa." The masked jounin smiled in kind underneath his mask and opened his Sharingan. "Then make me work for it, sensei."

Before Hare could roll their eyes, Iruka lunger forward, quick as lightning, and swung his tonfa forward, pushing Kakashi on the move and out of its way. The pale, masked assassin danced away from reach for the chuunin's twirling weapons, avoiding the powerful punches and sharp cuts as his body bent, feinted, twisted and turned, as he had been trained. The silver bells chimed, filling the focused silence that permeated the air between the two men, a chuunin and a jounin, two men of equal footing who wanted to see just how far they could push the limits they had settled on.

When Kakashi made a particularly narrow escape from Iruka's relentless advance, the tan man turned one tonfa in his hand, short handle-end forward, and made a snatching snag along the ex-ANBU's hip area — clinking against the small metal object dangling there, and yet just off the course to properly tug the thread loose and claim it. Noticing it, the pale man swung his counterattack in motion, his own set of weapons twirling through the air towards his assailant's head, forcing the man into defence and pulling his arms back from reaching the priced item, lest he could bruise his forehead.

The pair stilled, lengths of wood pressed hard against each other, while they gathered their breaths.

"Well done, sensei," Kakashi drawled, his voice warmer than his gaze, which could have fooled a genin. "You almost had it."

"Almost, but not quite, is what you're saying," Iruka replied, his grin growing a sharp edge of teeth to it as he kept the gaze of the red iris that stared him down. "Ready to pick up?"

It was a bit unnerving, the chuunin mildly noted to himself, to see the infamous Sharingan eye winking, when Kakashi hummed in agreement. "I thought you'd never offer."

Only a sharp huff was his answer, when Iruka pushed himself back on the move, and suddenly the familiar, eerie cry of thousand birds echoed in the spacious training room and the electric blue glow of chakra illuminated the torn and tattered tatami mats under their feet, when the dark-skinned man pulled his leash loose. A rush of red that crossed the horisontal scar on high cheeks rivaled in intensity the sky-blue flash that glinted  passingly in the dark, slanted eyes, when the strong body tensed and shifted gears, toned arms and legs working in unison as they drove the man's quarry across the training room. He could feel Hare's keen eyes on him, but as far as Iruka was concerned, the ANBU medic was a mere footnote in what interested him right then — it being the very man he had before him, dodging and defleting his strikes as he pushed further into the man's personal range, as his weapons pounded ruthlessly against the jounin's defences, making every hit count in his pursue for the small, gleaming object of interest that caught his eye when the jounin moved in tempo with him. Arcs of liquid lightning ignited the sweat drops that fell down his throat and back, prickling his skin and caressing his muscles like the very fingertips of the masked elite nin who kept himself out of reach, as if toying with him — a thought that was enough to rile up his professional pride, to make his jaw set itself tight and his eyes to narrow in frustration.

They had agreed on it, they had discussed it, and yet—

"You're hesitating," Kakashi's low, confident voice said just beside his ear, making Iruka's breath catch. "Or would you rather I do it?"

Before he caught onto the man's words, there landed a heavy horisontal hit from the jounin's tonfa across his diaphragm, cutting off his breath and making him stumble backwards. He almost lost his grip on his weapons as Iruka bowed down to wheeze for air, his lungs hurting and his vision blurring shortly with lingering blue spots. The near-silent thuds of feet closing in on him was the only warning he was able to hear with his ringing ears before his body moved on its ingrained sense of survival and cut off the oncoming strike, deflecting its path to his side and barely making it miss his shoulder — or so he thought, before his clever adversary decided to flick his wrist and turn the weapon's blunt head towards his side, punching him painfully below his ribs and thus causing him to nearly leave an opening to the other tonfa that was already on its way towards his clavicle. He dodged to the side and dashed away from the barrage of hits and fixed the jounin with a dark glare. As if the jounin could sense his gathering temper, the quiet, low hum that left the masked man carried a dark, dangerous edge to it.

He later would admit, in his own company, that it never had occurred to him that he could be aroused by such a sound.

At that moment, however, there was a game they had to settle. His muscles already trembled from the long match they had kept going on between them, and his heart hammered inside his chest, giving a cautious heads-up that such levels of pulse may not be healthy in the long run, and the gates that were locked underneath the seal rattled their cage. His mind, amidst the cacophony of thunder and crashing waves, worked fervently, drawing conclusions that left a lot to be desired in tactics he could pursue. In the end, admittedly, it would not matter, as he already knew, based on the other kind of sensations that traveled inside his veins and ignited a flicker of desire within him, that he would be heading straight into an evident conclusion for their match. He couldn't say if he was either giddy or wary of it. Not that he had the luxury to ponder on it, when he was once again forced into fray of tag-warfare, the jounin catching him in the middle of his personal dilemmas and making him forget them altogether when he forced his arms on the move, parrying as they went around the room that faded into nothingness in his mind. He had to forget playing it safe - he had to forget the audacious audience they had—

He had to forget himself.

A screech of lightning caught Kakashi by surprise when a shockwave of electricity raised the fine hairs on his neck on its way past him as he dodged to the side, it soon followed by a chuunin whose piercing glare could cut through steel - the man's hands moving in a flurry of motion as he whacked the wooden weapons against the other set, making the jounin briefly wonder the amount of bruises he might be sporting on the next day in his forearms.

On the other hand, the abrupt surge of chakra that knocked through the gates of his nervous system when a sweat-covered, tan arm brushed against his side, caught him unawares altogether.

Based on the sharp gasp he could hear from the younger shinobi, he suspected that he was not the only one hitting the line they had been punching towards.

Now they had to cross it.

Like a switch had been flipped inside his mind, Kakashi turned defence into offense, and launched himself towards his opponent, like a whirlwind of fatal accuracy, as he rained strikes all across the tan man's body, both torso and limbs. There was the glint of metal that caught his keen eye, the bell ringing like countdown to their match, as the jounin twisted his fingers along the length of his weapon and thrust forward to make the red thread wrap around the tip of his weapon—

Only to fall short in his strategy as he was forcibly removed from the chuunin's close proximity by the man fimself, the dark-haired, disheveled teacher thrusting his own weapons in between them and punching the cunning jounin squarely in the chest. He stumbled backwards, only belatedly realising his arms parrying the heavy blows aimed at him when his vision reeled briefly and violently into a blue wave that nailed him in passing, it carrying the howl that made his darker instincts to stir within. Someone shouted something close to him - or was it further away - but he paid that no attention when his focus narrowed into a tunnel-vision of red-tinged intent, when something within him bared its teeth and he could smell the tang of copper through his mask, felt his senses sharpen—

The way how the matted floor suddenly caught up with his face was a rather unwelcome surprise, as well the heavy and unrelenting presence that dropped like a lead weight onto him, then enveloped his senses and consequently locked his hound's instincts out of his mind, back into the dark kennels where it belonged.

"Enough!" Rang a voice that, at first, sounded oddly unfamiliar, before his mind caught up with him, and he recognized Hare. Furious and focused, the medic held their knee between his shoulder blades, pressed his chin against the tatami, tight chakra wire wound around his arms, and eyes behind their porcelain mask glaring hard at one chuunin sensei who had fallen down onto the floor, laying on his sweaty back, heaving for breath. The air crackled around them with the dying sparks of electricity; the storm passed above their heads, leaving only a deafening silence in its wake.

There wasn't much else that Kakashi could observe before he felt a sharp tap of fingers on his neck, and his mind, torn between a man and a shinobi, shut itself down for a nap.

He woke up to the sound of quiet discussion, somewhere close to him.

The ceiling of the familiar bedroom greeted his gaze as he opened up his lone, gray eye, and then, once his other senses were able to make a headcount, Kakashi let out a quiet, pained groan. His body was wrecked with pain. There was not a single hair on his skin that did not hurt.

The moment when his shaky memory was accounted for, another kind of groan passed his masked lips.

That was also when he recognized the voices from beyond the doors that had been pulled shut between him and the training room, in which he knew to be another man of another kind - a man who he had last seen being struck down for a count.

His muscles could complain all they wanted, but he forced himself to roll onto his aching side, and then placed his arms beneath himself before pushing himself halfway up on the mattress. All of his upper body muscles, between his fingers and his shoulder blades, shook and trembled under his weight, but he refused to heed to their pleas.

As if someone had heard the feeble cries of help from his treacherous body, sound of footsteps approached the sliding doors, and soon enough, they were pulled open by none other than Hare, the ANBU medic staring down at him in the light of the early afternoon. The medic stood silent in the doorway, blocking the view into the training room behind their back, before their white mask tilted, ever so slightly, and then, they spoke: "You have outdone yourself, Hatake. I never knew it possible."

That...was not what Kakashi had anticipated. The gaze he felt upon him was scathing, to say the least. "Uh—"

"He is managing, if you want to know," Hare cut him off before the masked jounin could form a coherent question, their voice cool and cutting, like the finest steel they had learned to handle. "I healed him up, to ease most of the pain he will undoubtedly feel for a few days. I am not sure if I want to give you the same courtesy."

Kakashi didn't need to see Iruka to be able to picture the expression on the chuunin's face at such harsh words.

Not that he was able to get lost in his imagination when he still was the sole target of the ANBU's icily burning ire.

"Sleep, Hatake. We will discuss this once you don't stare at me like there's two instead of one," Hare then said, this time with much more sedated tone of voice, albeit the edge was still there. Then, without waiting for an answer from their patient in question, the medic pulled the doors shut with an audible click, which was a hint clear enough for Kakashi not to push his luck.

Knowing when following the doctor's orders was the better option for his immediate health, Kakashi settled back down onto the mattress, hissing quietly in pain when his body complained the abuse it had went through. His eye blinked blearily at the shadows above him, them stretching into the corners of the room he had now been confined into, and he listened to the muffled, quiet sound of discussion that filtered through the doors that stood between him and the younger shinobi he had been woken up with on that morning — the man he had, apparently, hurt badly enough to make Hare, their hardened field medic, to treat him with coldness he had never thought the ANBU being capable of.

As the voice he sought out with his senses soothed out the frown that had formed on his brow, he slowly, gradually, slipped beneath the dark ripples of his consciousness, and fell asleep.

The next time he woke up, all was silent around him.

The light that passed across the ceiling above had the tinge of late afternoon to it, darker hue of yellow when compared to the pale rays of morning sun.

It was time, perhaps, for him to move now. Hissing quietly, Kakashi grit his teeth against the pangs of pain as he rolled once more onto his side. He collected his breath, lying on the bedding, before he pushed himself upright and let his mind settle down, clearing away the drowsiness that made the room tilt underneath him. Ever so slowly, he peeled away the blanket and slowly pulled his legs underneath himself, rising to stand with a slight wobble to his hurting knees. His shins were in agony, along with his thighs, and his back hurt like it always did after a particularly nasty fight with missing nins. Focusing on ignoring his body's objections, one leg shifted forward, then another, and the masked man, renowed legend of Konoha, shuffled slowly to the doors that shielded him from the daylight. Pale hands took hold onto the worn wood, and with a slow rattle and clack, the doors slid on their rails, exposing him to the rays of light that spilled around him.

The same light fell onto the form of a lone, dark-haired man with a horisontal scar on his cheeks, who sat with his back to the wall, supported by a pillow. He had been writing something into the small notebook that now rested on his lap, his expression calm as he looked at the scenery outside, and his upper body had been stripped bare, showing his ribcage that had been bound and secured with a bandage, its stark whiteness contrasting with the dark skin that was exposed around it. At the sound of the doors opening into the room, the man turned his attention to the source, his dark, slanted eyes looking straight at Kakashi. After the silent moment had counted to five, a smile splayed on Iruka's face, it breaking the tension of his jaw and chasing away the shadow that had lingered in his gaze.

"You're awake," he said.

Kakashi, for what he had been for Konoha, forgot his burdensome fame and could only look at the teacher in silence. Iruka's forearms were bruised, his shoulders carried the signs of heavy strikes hitting through his defences, and yet his expression held no grudge, nor comfort either.

"Hare's fetching some supplies they said they needed for us, but it shouldn't be long," Iruka continued, as if he had not noticed the anomaly of one flummoxed Hatake that stood before him. "There's food in the fridge, in case you're hungry." He made no gesture to move out of his half-reclining position as he motioned towards the kitchen, which finally brought Kakashi back into focus, when his mind comprehended what that might mean for their situation.

"...Are you—" the jounin began, and then fell silent.

"Not more than you are, undoubtedly," Iruka replied, his voice dropping lower than what it had been, when the chuunin held the gaze he was given, it at odds with the peculiar smile he gave to the other man. "I was made to understand rather forcefully that it is in my best interest not to move a muscle before our meddlesome medic returns. Hence you'll have to fend for your own food. Not that I could help you with it anyway."

A list of probable answers flew by in his mind. "Maa. Best to make the small reprieve count then," Kakashi said instead. Though when he turned to hobble into the kitchen, he paused and gave a look at the chuunin over his shoulder, not surprised when the man kept looking at him. "Have you already eaten?"

It was as if the simple question had caught Iruka unguarded, and he gave a confused blink that soon melted into a short, albeit pained chuckle. "Yes. I have. I'm well fed over here." By a way of answering, he pointed at a tray that had been left nearby, piled with dirty dishes. "Worry for your own stomach for now, before Hare returns. They didn't seem too keen about the idea of you getting out of the bed unsupervised."

That was a fair warning if Kakashi had ever heard one. With that, he settled to endure the tremors of ache that made him catch his breath as he set off to reach the kitchen. He needed food, and he needed coffee. In addition to that, he found himself idly thinking as he made his way into the corridor leading to the kitchen, he needed the company of the man he left staring after him.

Willing his hands to work properly and coordinate accordingly between themselves, Kakashi prepared a meal for himself, curry by the looks of it, and brewed himself a pot to go along with it, spilling some coffee grains in the process and cursing silently for it. After that, he carefully took the dishes in tow and stepped onto the terrace, on which he and his mission partner, along with many other shinobis involved, had spent multiple moments discussing the disastrous mission they had embarked on.

He refused to meet Iruka's worrying glances as he crouched down, ever so painfully, and finally flopped down on his hurting backside, leaning against one of the pillars supporting the roof. He sighed heavily when his body released a pained shudder at the abuse it was forced to endure. He minded the plate and the cup, as well his chopsticks, while he settled in a position that did not feel like ripping his spine sideways in half, and then pulled down his mask while he turned to glance at the other man who looked at him from his own resting position. "...How bad?"

A huff left Iruka at the question he was given, but he had expected that, to some degree. The chagrined look he observed on Kakashi's unmasked face when the jounin started to worry his meal was as good as any clue for any shinobi to deduce that the man in question was not pleased with himself at that moment. The chuunin put down the notebook from his lap and rested his head against the wall, letting his eyes take in the sight before him, before he replied: "A set of bruised ribs. Some sprained muscles, and my arms have been better before, but other than that, nothing major. Nothing that proper rest could not heal, after Hare-san took care of the worst of it. You on the other hand look like Raikage-sama had decided to use you as a conductor for lightning. You should have stayed in bed."

"I should have stayed in bed this morning," Kakashi muttered darkly and picked at his food before starting to eat.

"Indeed, and preferably with me keeping you company," Iruka quipped dryly from his spot behind the barrier, making the jounin almost cough out his curry.

"...What?" Kakashi managed, aghast, to ask after dislocating the rice from his windpipe and wiping the corners of his eyes.

"Tit for tat, bastard," Iruka said, deadpan, and then quirked an eyebrow at the perplexed jounin. "Make of it what you will."

Somehow, the way how the teacher looked at him right at that moment, made his tongue taste nothing. "You're circling again."

"Am I?" This time, the eyebrow lowered down into a frown on the dark-skinned face, and Iruka turned himself slightly to face the sulking man properly. "This is nothing new. We have been through worse on this mission, in case you need a reminder."

There wasn't much for Kakashi to say to that, and he was mildly surprised to notice how his pale jaw set tight at what was said. Not that he would be given a chance to retaliate verbally, considering the strict tone he could deter in the younger man's voice. He set down his half-eaten lunch and picked up his much needed source for caffeine, if only to have something to ground himself with. "It would not work if I forced you, nor am I planning to."

"I would not be here had I not been willing, idiot." Cool and collected, that was what Iruka wanted himself to sound, but his temper had other ideas, making his words sound harsher than he intended. The sight of the subdued jounin, one of their best men in the field, was making him restless. To calm himself, and to tell the chirping birds to take a hike from his mind, he took in a long breath before crossing his arms, wincing in pain. "I would be in the hospital, getting chewed out by Tsunade-sama, instead of lounging here and having this conversation with you. I knew what I was getting into. Yet you, for some reason, seem to think differently."

"This is not—"

"Then what else is it that I see on your face, hm? Don't tell me you're starting to regret it." It made his stomach turn into something he would rather not consider right at that moment when Iruka said those words, so instead he concentrated on glaring at the unmasked shinobi who glared back at him, the narrow, gray eye drawing him in like a moth to a flame.

The air stiffened and filled out between them, heavy bodies of silence lumbering past them, as the two men held their shared eye contact, neither of them blinking first.

To the surprise of the last elephant making its way across the room, Kakashi was the first to turn his eyes away, his mouth thinning into a line of stubborn pride — at least, that's how it appeared to Iruka who kept his attention on the man, and who, despite spending all this time with the eccentric jounin, was angry at himself for not being able to read the other's expression properly. With a frown, he finally let his own gaze drop down from staring at the brooding jounin, and doing so, a glint of metal caught the corner of his eye.

A quiet chime of a silver bell rang like a brass gong into the heavy silence that had settled upon them, breaking it into million pieces. Kakashi glanced back to see the small bell that dangled from its red thread, held carefully by nimble, tan fingers. Iruka held the small object in his hand, the man seemingly focused on the lightness and the sound of it, his dark eyes looking at nothing else except the item before him. Yet Kakashi knew exactly where the man's attention really was.

"...Hare didn't interfere because of what you think you did," Iruka then said, almost too quiet for anyone to hear, but he knew the jounin beyond the barrier was a man famed for his keen senses. He let the bell settle onto his palm before picking it back up with his fingers, running it along his skin, not paying mind to the older shinobi whose eye he felt on his body. "It was your intent that made them do it."

Kakashi, despite his famed composure, lost his footing for a moment. So then—

"In essence, you didn't strike me down physically, no matter what Hare made you think. Mentally — well, that's a whole another thing altogether," Iruka continued after a short moment of thought. He curled his fingers around the bell, feeling it press against his palm inside his fist. He focused on that light pressure, to ease off the heavy sense of dread that crept upon his shoulders, it making his throat muscles constrict with a twinge of pain. "I have never been in the receiving end of such Killing Intent. It was as if I had been ripped apart. I didn't know such a thing was possible to experience."

There were not many words of reassurance, or remorse, that were available for Konoha's infamous ex-ANBU right then. He sat there, on the terrace, sunlight warming his bruised body, and yet his mind traveled somewhere else, shrouding itself into shame that made him grit his teeth before he even realized it. No wonder Hare had been so harsh with their treatment towards him. To do such a cruel thing to an ally, no, to his mission partner—

...No. To this particular man who sat there behind the barrier, staring at the silver bell that had blindsided him — or them both, for that matter.

"Forgive me." The words were out before he caught himself, but he did catch the shock that flickered across Iruka's face when he said it. "That is a line I should not have crossed. I should not have lost my head. Not at you."

They sat in silence, letting the words sunk into the space around them. The half-eaten food sat forgotten in the sunlight, and the coffee had grown cold.

"..You are a formidable foe, Kakashi." Iruka broke the spell between them, his words carefully weighed, and his eyes looking pensive. "I would not expect anything else."

Kakashi wasn't sure if that was meant to either absolve or admonish him. Or both. What he was sure about, however, was the sliver of red he suddenly caught spreading across the scar that had always drawn his gaze. Noticing it, he also noticed the way how the tan body had slumped heavier against the pillow supporting it, as if it having let go of the tension it had kept up until then. After that, he noticed what laid behind the intelligent man's gaze that still lingered on his unmasked face, the chuunin dissecting whatever was exposed to him. It was something that made the notorious Hound swallow, ever so carefully.

It was the look of someone who had discovered something unsettling, but who was willing to sit with the discomfort and stare back at it.

"Did I interrupt something?" Spoke another voice suddenly from behind Kakashi's back, which alarmed his reflexes to pull his mask back up hastily before the jounin turned to look at the newcomer, who, in their current role, had already become somewhat constant presence in their shared household.

Hare stood in the yard, having popped back from their errands, and despite having their face covered with a mask, both the chuunin and the jounin knew where they kept their eyes at that moment, and it was not their former captain. Without a word, the ANBU medic hefted the bag slung across their shoulder and strolled onto the stairs of the terrace, pausing to stand next to the silver-haired elite who stayed completely still in their presence. Not waiting for anyone to address them, the medic opened up the barrier into the training room and left their former team captain alone on the terrace, not paying attention to anything else except the dark-haired chuunin who was trying to lift himself in a better position against the wall. Without a word, the medic set down their bag and reached over to aid the flustered man who was trying to look at anywhere else except either of the shinobis in his presence. "Not so quick, Umino-san. You'll sprain something if you try to force it, and I would hate to redo the dressing again." After a beat of silence, the white mask turned to look at the jounin sitting next to his forgotten lunch, and the voice that spoke beneath the porcelain mask was colourless in its tone, when the medic spoke: "Finish your lunch, Hatake, and get back to bed. I'll look at you once I'm done here."

He knew dismissal when he heard it. Considering what else he had just found put on his plate, Kakashi deemed it reasonable for him to follow the orders given. Seeing that his company was not wanted at that moment, he took his plate and cup with him into the kitchen and finished his meal in silence, leaning for support against the counter and mulling the cold mouthfuls on his tongue, just like the idle thoughts forming in his mind.

Within a few moments, he found himself back on his bed, leafing through one of his paperbacks without seeing a word on its pages, while waiting for his execution. The quiet sounds of Hare tending to Iruka filled the air around him, his ears picking up hisses and grunts here and there, accompanied with some quiet murmur from their medic. After a while that lasted longer than the weeks they had been on this mission, footsteps carried over to the bedroom doors and Hare stepped over its threshold before shutting the doors behind them. Kakashi wasn't sure if it was because Hare wanted to give them privacy or if they wanted to make it harder for Iruka to save him, should the medic attempt to relieve their ranks of one former ANBU member. Considering the change he could detect in the room's temperature the moment when the doors clicked shut was putting the bet onto the latter option.

"You sure are a piece of work, Hatake." The diagnose was straight to the point, to Hare's credit.

Kakashi, to his own credit, held his tongue this time. Though based on how it seemed to further ruffle the fur of his former teammate, he wasn't sure if that was a smart move.

"Nothing to add? You keep surprising me today, senpai," the medic continued, still holding their position by the closed doors, hands kept in clear view, their shoulders lowered and back straight, as if assessing a potential threat before them. The jounin who sat under the scrutinizing gaze remembered faintly how the field nin was acting similar to how they once had during one particularly grueling mission. That one, if the former ANBU captain recalled correctly, had involved a burning pit.

Perhaps it was better if Kakashi respected the courtesy he was given. "Iruka already told me why you had to step in, Hare."

"He did, indeed. He also seems to think that he's partially to blame for it. I am of different opinion." The words spoken were void of teasing, merely a distorted echo of the jovial impression the ANBU had meticulously built in the company of the chuunin they were now discussing. "If you value his opinion, then you behave and let me heal you."

There wasn't much that the scolded jounin could say to that. He stayed in his place and let the medic approach him, to crouch down and check him over before their armored hands glowed in green chakra. The areas over which their gloved palms slowly passed stopped stinging and aching, leaving only a faint discomfort in their wake. Kakashi supposed that it was fair, with all things considered.

"There will be consequences," Hare muttered quietly as they kept their focus on their task. "Umino-san is as headstrong as they come, but everyone has their breaking point. I hope for your sake that you did not make him reach his."

"I know," Kakashi said, if only to acknowledge the withered and thorny olive branch pointed at him. "What did you two discuss over there?"

"I gave him some medical advice."

"He doesn't need your meddling—"

"Then stop changing the prescription." The terse response from the ANBU took them both by surprise, if the stunned silence that followed the short-lived outburst was any indication. Hare seemed to recover first, and cleared their throat. "You're even worse when you are like this. It's unsettling."

"Maa—"

"I dare you to finish that 'maa'. Now shut it and let me finish." Gathering their scattered focus once again, the Black Op continued their work in silence, their disgruntled presence pressing heavily against the man in their care. Not that they really seemed to care about that. Finally, after the tense minutes that had passed between the two quiet nins, seemingly content with the extent of their healing, Hare huffed and stood back up before walking back to the closed doors that kept them separated from the training room. As they took hold onto the doors to pull them open, they glanced at their former captain over their armored shoulder, and only then did Kakashi, him thoroughly acquainted with the occasional sadistic streaks of his masked colleague, realise how badly he had positioned himself on the wrong side of the Konoha medic. As if noticing the rising alarm of the ex-ANBU, Hare spoke with a tone that left no room for misinterpretation. "I don't have the authority to properly discipline you. But, as your fellow ANBU, I am not at liberty to look the other way, either. Therefore, you only get to watch, senpai."

Not waiting for the objection from their former captain, the medic pulled open the doors and let them both face the sight of Iruka standing in the middle of the training room, tonfas held ready in his hands, and a small silver bell hanging from his waistband. His chest was still bandaged, with the lines of the seal peeking over the edge of the dressing, but there he stood, like any shinobi worth their salt, patiently waiting to be called.

Kakashi, on his side of things, was about to call out the absurdity of the situation. "Wait—" The sharp scowl which pierced through his skull from behind the porcelain mask that turned to look at him, however, asphyxiated the forming argument inside his ribcage.

Therefore he could only watch as Hare, the notorious ANBU who was well-known for their melee skills, hummed under their breath, like any other shinobi of Konoha about to do some light sparring, and stepped through the barrier to where their appointed opponent was waiting for them. He watched as the medic saluted the dark-haired chuunin who gave them room to put away their belt pouch, along with any sharp weapons, before the armored hands picked up a familiar pair of blunt weapons. Weighing them for a moment, the masked medic shrugged and then gently dropped one of them back onto the floor, then rolling their shoulders and twirling the remaining tonfa in their hand, as nonchalantly as they would have been handling a list of medical supplies.

The way how Iruka quirked an unimpressed eyebrow at the apparent bait for his ego, oddly enough, lessened some of the alarm that had been ringing inside Kakashi's silver-haired head.

That is, until he saw the posture into which Hare settled into to begin the strangely arranged match: their free hand held behind their back, knees lightly bent, and their side facing their chosen opponent, the tonfa settling itself snugly against their armored forearm. Noticing that Iruka caught onto his unease did not make it easier to accept the fact that he, at that moment, had no permission to interfere.

"Rules are simple," Hare then said, their voice ringing with the commanding presence that could only be gained through bloody and bitter battle. "Hatake, you watch and learn. Umino-san, whenever you're ready, at your own leisure. Remember what we discussed."

With a nod, and a passing glance at the jounin watching them both, Iruka took a breath and adjusted his own posture, pulling his weapons by his side and shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet. The dark eyes kept their focus on the ANBU who withstood the assessment without a sweat, the porcelain mask shielding them from the dark-haired chuunin's attentive eyes, not a single muscle twitching as they waited for the other to make the first move.

Kakashi blinked, and then Iruka was onto the awaiting ANBU, his movement quick and precise when he aimed at the armored torso with the long end of the weapon that swung from unerneath his forearm, only to be parried with an equally swift block when the masked medic moved along their opponent's movement, the armored body twisting alonside the weapon's path as it sailed past its aim before releasing their own counterattack, thrusting their tonfa towards the bandaged side. Before it managed to connect, Iruka stepped back out of its path and swung the length of his second weapon at the masked head, which was blocked as efficiently as the previous strike. The pair stilled, observing one another over their guard positions, and it was then when Kakashi realised why he had been left to the sidelines.

Then Hare clicked their tongue, and the medic set upon their target, their lone tonfa striking in precise clacks against the others as the ANBU drove the dark-haired teacher back into the center of the training room, pushing the chuunin along the hits that left no openings for the other man to take. Both the armored and the bandaged shinobi circled one another within the confines of the barrier that rippled whenever they stepped too close to its boundaries, the room echoing with the sharp cracks of wood and the chime of a bell mixing into it. After a rather impressive exhange of blows, the nins stopped leaning against their crossed weapons, pushing against the pressure they shared between them, and the voice that carried from beneath the white, painted mask could have been described as impressed, should anyone had paid attention to the nuances right then. "You're holding well, Umino-san. Very good."

From his vantage point, Kakashi knew better. Hare had not even taken their other hand into use, utilising their chakra reserves fully, whereas Iruka was already losing the edge of his weapon control, with most of his chakra sealed away underneath his dark skin. If anything, the teacher was sweating profusely, and his chest was heaving more than usual after such a short while, drawing the jounin's gaze to the gauze covering what undoubtedly were hurting ribs.

For the briefest moment, the jounin wondered if it was only him that Hare wanted to punish for being reckless.

"Keep your attention where it should be kept, Hatake," Hare called out, almost casually, as they stood their ground against the relentless weight bearing down onto their single tonfa. "Umino-san's eyes are further up."

The moment when Kakashi lifted his eyes to look at Iruka, he could swear the man's face twisted in mortification before the expression disappeared, leaving only a rush of red lingering on the high cheekbones. As if the ANBU's remark had hit a nerve, the chuunin in question kicked their knee ruthlessly up at the ANBU's side, his eyes glaring at the provocative medic who saw it coming and who blocked it with their own leg before releasing their locked position, the armored assassin turning on their heels and then rounding the other man until they reached the suitable range to unleash another set of well-measured strikes at their opponent, their single tonfa drawing graceful circles and lines through the air between the matching shinobis, like a fatal form of calligraphy.

"You two have thought it all backwards, senpai," Hare then decided to continue speaking, as if they were discussing the day's lunch and not driving their opponent into proverbial corner. "There's no sense in forceful approach, as you can see. I hardly get anywhere closer to the goal. Therefore that is the least sensible method you could pick. Instead—," they then stepped within Iruka's personal range, almost side to side with the surprised chuunin, "—you should aim to be efficient." Their tonfa flipped around in their grip, short handle-end replacing the long end and swinging in a swift, ruthless strike, like a hammer at the chuunin's shoulder, the force behind it strong enough to make the dark-haired man stumble backwards and lose his balance. The next move made Iruka drop onto his knee as the ANBU caught his exposed shoulder with the same handle and pulled the man to the floor, yanking the body as if pulling down a sack of rice. Before the chuunin hit the matted floor, an echo of a silver bell rang clearly in the training room, thus signaling the end of the match as it dangled from the gloved fingers. "Less exposure is to your benefit, and that goes for both of you. You do not want to push the limits too abruptly at this stage, but rather add pressure gradually. That means you should keep your head clear."

Kakashi had a fleeting feeling that those last words were directed at him.

Not waiting for the dark-haired teacher to pick himself up from the floor, the ANBU medic grabbed the man's arm and pulled Iruka back up, briefly checking their patient for possible new bruises. Apparently content with whatever they saw, Hare then walked back to their abandoned supplies and relinquished their hold on their favorite weapon, after which they picked up their other belongings to put them back in their rightful places. Then they turned to give a look over their beaten adversary, as if an afterthought had passed them. "Umino-san, you should take a shower. It would not do well to catch a cold at this stage of your mission. I can re-bind your ribs after that, if you still feel the need for it."

With a light huff, almost as if the teacher was expecting such an order, Iruka put away his own set of tonfas before calmly making his way to the bathroom doors, through which he then passed when Hare opened the barrier, and which were closed after him.

To Kakashi's complete surprise, Hare dropped the barrier to the bedroom and beckoned him to join them in the training room. The sound of a shower started in the bathroom as the lanky jounin made his cautious way to the awaiting ANBU medic who kept a keen look at the doors behind which was the third member of their impromptu group.

"You know, Hatake," Hare then said quietly, their attention kept beyond their former captain as they stood close to one another, "I may not agree with you for most of the time, but there are occasions when even a doctor has to try an unorthodox method to treat their patient. Then there are moments when the patient would do well to understand what is in their best interest." Then they walked over to the terrace, looking at the scenery behind the tall fence that surrounded the house of their current wards, as casually as ever, despite them both knowing better. "I suggest that you act on that advice." Then, with a faint pop of displaced air, the meddlesome medic disappeared from the light-gray house, leaving a lone, masked jounin staring after them in stunned silence.

A silence that was soon filled with his increased heartbeat when he realised that he had turned to stare at a pair of doors that were lacking a barrier.

Swallowing, he forced his feet on the move, walking gingerly across the matted floor towards the room that contained the man who had yet to turn off the shower.

After a moment's hesitation, he took a hold onto the doors and slid them open, getting a waft of steam on his masked face as he stepped in. The shower was on, and there was a familiar shape of a shadow behind the glass panel that, miraculously, was still intact in between the two showers they had used during their days in the house. The tiles felt cold underneath his feet but he did not pay mind to that as he pulled down his mask and peeled off his singlet, discarding it with no thought given, it soon followed by his slacks and underwear, and then he stopped. He observed the form of the man behind the glass, his eye tracing the lines of the body he had already gotten to know quite closely, and then he walked further, approached the barrier that shielded it from him, before he stepped around it and was greeted with a naked, dark-skinned back, that sported a large scar between the shoulder blades. The dark, wet, long hair cascaded over the broad shoulders as Iruka stood under the water, and yet it was nothing of note when the chuunin turned around sharply to look at him; the dark, slanted eyes staring straight at Kakashi's lone, narrow gray.

Not that he took time to admire the view when his hands found themselves caressing the man's jaw, his fingers traveling along the dark skin, and his head diving underneath the spraying water; his hair got wet and his skin prickled with sparks of lightning, them passing as a mere afterthought in his mind, when he claimed the full lips that had opened with a gasp. He felt strong fingers digging both into his shoulder and neck as he was pulled fully under the falling water by the man he held, the thrum of droplets humming with charging electricity around the embracing pair. He wasn't sure whose tongue tasted who first, but Kakashi found himself getting heady from the sighs and sounds he could hear coming from the other man as he deepened the kiss that frayed his sanity, along with the last of his shredded pride. He distantly felt his body to move them around, pressing them against the glass panel that clunked dully from the impact it was suddely forced to bear before he pulled away from the kiss-swollen lips and lowered his teeth to run along the beating pulse underneath the heated, tan skin of Iruka's throat. His fingers found a pert nipple on their way down the body he caressed, and his own skin erupted into sharply stinging shocks of chakra that seemed to follow his movements, causing heat to rush both over his pale cheeks and into his hardening cock that brushed against the naked thigh of the man, who responded with a breathy moan.

Iruka's body shivered with wanton exhilaration as he stood, only just, against the onslaught of caresses he was subjected to. There was a mouth nipping and kissing his skin, and a pair of hands traveling all over his body, along with spikes of static that slithered in their wicked ways through the cracks of his sense of propriety, making him a mess of a man who could only react and reciprocate to what he was given.

The moment when Kakashi dropped down in a crouch in front of his fully erected cock and gave it a long lick before swallowing it down, Iruka felt his foundation to collapse like a dying star. He could only watch as the jounin's lips encircled him and the witty man's sharp tongue lapped at his hot skin, losing himself into a distant memory of a dirty fantasy he had once entertained in the very room they were in. That did nothing to stop him from pistoning his hips forward, desperately, into the jounin's mouth. If anything, Kakashi seemed to gain a new spark because of it, and Iruka had to bite onto his knuckles as not to cry out incoherently when the pale man set to work between his legs, strong fingers pressing hard against the meat of his thighs and holding him in place while he had no choice but to choke on the name that pushed its way up to his throat. It took him a moment to catch up with his hands that had reached over to the small shelf where they kept their soaps by the shower head, and he grabbed blindly for a small, innocuous tube that had been put into the pocket of his pants, courtesy of one specific ANBU he would rather not think about right then.

At the sight of the lube offered to him, Kakashi seemed to connect the dots a bit too quickly to Iruka's liking. However, he couldn't stew on the matter for too long, as there soon was a pair of slick fingers probing their way into him, tossing his focus out of the proverbial window very effectively as he tried to find purchase on the slippery glass with his trembling hands. He didn't know for how long he rode that wave, his head slipping beneath the ripples of pleasure that wrecked his body, until he sensed more than saw the jounin standing back up, pulling his thighs up as he went and hooking his shaky knees over pale elbows, thus forcing his scarred back to slide further against the cool glass behind him, and his own hands to wrap themselves around the broad shoulders that supported his weight. He had no time to form any coherent thought, nor experience any fleeting anticipation, before he was dropped onto a slippery, hard cock that made him forget his own name for a blinding moment. The slide of the length inside him drove him delirious with each inch that filled him, his mouth dropping open in a silent cry against the pale shoulder he held onto for his dear life, a life that he would readily give for the feelings that ripped his heart apart and swallowed it with delight.

The snaps of his hips thrusting upwards into the slick, wet warmth, his arms holding onto the spasming hips and legs of the loudly gasping chuunin at his mercy, and his own, slack mouth panting heavily against the hot, flushed skin of the other man, was everything that Kakashi's world consisted of right then. His body stood upright by what felt like sheer spite towards the thunderous chakra that spread like a wildfire through his nervous system, making his ears ring while his very being rearranged itself messily; his muscles trembled and jerked as he kept on the movement, his chest heaved and for a moment he was worried that his heart would give out. The rhythmic slap of skin echoed sharply around them, it mixing with the rush of water from the shower that beat against his feverish skin, and he had a half-hysterical thought of it turning into steam from the sheer heat they both emanated between them.

It wasn't long until Iruka threw his head back, his throat working silently with a cry of release as his body arched like a bow against the glass, the chuunin's body tightening almost painfully around Kakashi as he kept on pushing the teacher over the edge, groaning loudly as he himself hit a wall of mind-numbing pleasure like a mindlessly thrown projectile. He released his hold from the tan, shaking body, narrowly avoiding collapsing with the other man's missing balance as Iruka's feet met the floor, but he didn't wait for the man to adjust until he bullied the man around and pressed the teacher back against the glass panel, this time chest forward, then pulled the lean hips back, nudged the tan thighs wide apart and pushed himself back in with one swift movement.

This time, Iruka did cry out loudly.

There was a hand holding onto his neck, pressing his mouth against the glass that fogged up from his panting breath, with another set of fingers bruising his hips that were met with merciless slaps of hips that belonged to the man fucking his iron will out of him, and he could only brace himself against the sensations, move with the tempo that rushed them both towards the inevitable. His spent cock had begun to harden once again, it leaking and bouncing between his thighs that were kept wide open, his muscles complaining in agony and yet wanting more of what he was given; him releasing the control, willingly handing it to the beast eating him from inside out. His chest burned, both freezing and scorching at once, the seal pulsating wildly with each pulse of chakra that flashed its blue light before his blindly staring eyes.

A pale hand reached around him and wrapped around his shaft, the grip firm and heavy, and it was at that moment when them both, simultaneously, felt themselves drop into free fall, them plunging into the awaiting darkness that wiped their minds blank.

Numbly, Iruka felt himself fall against a warm body, spent and aching, consequently submerging into spray of water that cooled off his heated skin, pinpricks of ice snapping him awake and aware of several things all at once, the most obvious of them being the fact that he was still in the shower, and he was not alone.

Secondly, his mussed mind helpfully noted, the man who enjoyed the shared cold shower with him was kissing him silly, bruising his mouth and sliding their tongue against his — and he was more than willing to oblige.

Though the moment when fingers twisted and pinched at his hardening nipples, he searched for the man's name from the gutter into which his mind had disgracefully fallen during the past few moments. "Ah—Kakashi—wait—" He grabbed at the devious hands before they could goad his overwhelmed libido into thinking that a second round of such vigorous activities would be a marvellous idea in their circumstances, and managed to pull himself away from the enticing mouth that chased after his taste. Witnessing the dark blush covering the pale face of Konoha's most famed jounin, and the thoroughly mellowed out look that could only belong to a well-fucked man, wasn't making it any easier for him to rally his feeble willpower to resist the temptation right then. If anything, it was a near thing for him to throw it into the wind. Nevertheless, he persisted. "Let's get out of the shower—" The man's heavy frame slumped abruptly against him before he could finish the suggestion, making him almost lose his own precarious footing on the slippery floor, and a brief flash of alarm rang the bell in his mind when the jounin became unresponsive and quiet, the man's hands dropping to their sides and the pale knees buckling underneath the slack weight of the highly trained body, kept up only by the baffled chuunin who caught him. "Kakashi? Kakashi!"

Lean, lethal and limp, was the notorious assassin that he suddenly found himself arms full with.

For what he had been through until that point, Iruka Umino had not considered to bear witness to the day when Kakashi Hatake, the pervert extraordinaire, would pass out after a bout of sex in the shower.

On the other hand, when the room seemed to tilt sideways in his own field of vision as he tried to adjust his hold on the man, Iruka wondered if he would soon witness himself passing out with a naked jounin in his company.

Knowing who might then be the one witnessing all that, was more than enough to force his mind back on the track. With a new sense of urgency that steeled his self-control, Iruka gingerly reached up for the shower head and pulled it down to give them both a rinse while supporting the weight of the village genius in his arms. After that, he turned off the faucets and made a mental note to feel guilty later, as he fumbled and dropped the shower head with a clink on the floor and shuffled painfully slowly with his awkward burden towards the towel rack. The elite shinobi was heavier than he had assumed, the dead weight hanging against his side adding unnecessary struggle for his advances, and he pulled down a towel, with a couple of muttered curses to go along, before he gave a pause at a rather pressing dilemma with both of the man's famous assets now naked to the world of shinobis around them.

He figured Kakashi would forgive him later for prioritising what made more sense for him to cover right then. After a brief struggle between one piece of fabric and two pairs of flailing hands belonging to a grunting chuunin who managed to tie the towel around the pale man's hips, Iruka found himself thinking that he should have just wrapped the towel around the bastard's head and call it a day.

Considering the effort he had wasted on someone who was not even conscious in order to appreciate it, Iruka snatched for his own towel and flung it over his free shoulder before he pushed them through the door leading into the corridor of their current lodgings. "Sorry for this—," he found himself muttering to no-one in particular, as the odd pair made their hobble across the floorboards, "—but I think you'd rather wake up in your bed than on the cold tiles. Just keep breathing as you are, and we'll be alright." There was a part of him that doubted that, but the rest of him promptly shut that voice up. This was not the moment for him to panic over his own lack of modesty, nor about the way how his ribs hurt with every breath he drew when he dragged them over the threshold of the bedroom, but he kept his focus on the faint wisps of air that passed between the pale man's lips, brushing ever so lightly against the skin of his neck. The body in his grip had occasionally stirred and stumbled as they had made their way towards the deemed destination, which had lessened his worry for the other man, if only slightly.

Yet he had learned not to take anything on mere face value, not when it came to the mission they were currently on.

No matter how attractive the face was.

"How is it—," he conversed absentmindedly as he stopped them by the awaiting futon, and craned his neck to look at the unmasked Bingo Book Killer that kept snuffling against his throat, "—that this is the moment when you decide to faint on me, after all that we have been through so far." He hefted the body against his own before he slowly lowered them down on the mattress, the older shinobi's long limbs not helping Iruka at all with his careful ministrations, which made him end up, naked and panting heavily, atop the unconscious man, before he was able to dislodge the other's arm from around his neck. There was an embarrassing fragment of a memory that popped up in his mental archives regarding a similar situation he had been in, with his neck under a heavy arm and his chin pressed against the solid chest, which made a scowl to darken his brow. He did not need such reminders of his foolishness right then.

As if discarding the unwanted thoughts from circling his mind, he wiped his face with his towel before standing back up and tying it properly around his hips. With most of his concerns now somewhat handled, them being the body he had hauled on the futon, he could then concentrate on other things that needed his attention.

For instance, the sudden wave of nausea that punched him in the gut with all too familiar force, dropping him back onto his knees.

His heart hammered inside his chest and the room reeled around him, his eyes hurt and his head felt like splitting in two, as he heaved and gagged dryly through his burning throat. Numbly, he fumbled for hand signs and flared up his chakra, noticing how disturbingly low the reserve was from which he was able to pull it, the seal on his chest trampling over it like an enraged bull. He hit the floor with his palm as his body followed suit, tumbling onto his aching side and narrowly bracing his head for an impact with his arm. In his blurred vision, he saw a pair of armored feet to appear by the bedroom doors and rush towards him, followed by the white mask with red streaks hovering above him, and he could hear someone speaking to him amid the loud tinnitus. The green glow of chakra made his back to arc up from the floor as an unfamiliar, and yet so disturbingly familiar, chakra signature flooded his veins and kicked his nervous system into overdrive.

"..-san! Um..o-san! Can you hear me?" There was Hare calling him, the haze of drunken disorientation distorting their mellow voice as the ANBU sought for the thread through which they could pull him back.

Slowly, painfully slowly, the room, and the medic working above him, came into focus. The floor stopped rolling underneath him, and Iruka took in a deep, agonizing breath, before he coughed up a mouthful of water and curled himself against the pain that dug its blade in between his ribs.

"Ka-Kakashi—," he heaved, although his tongue wasn't so sure which way to turn with each syllable he forced out, "he's—"

A pat of a gloved hand on his shoulder signaled he had been understood well enough, and the medic retreated from his side to check up on his mission partner close-by, before turning back to him, just in time to catch Iruka as he tried to push himself upright on the floor.

"Hatake is fine, though he seems to be out cold." With that, the medic's armored hands supported the chuunin in his attempt to pull his legs back under himself, and Hare gave a glance over the state that the patient in their care currently was in, once Iruka seemed capable enough to stay standing with the offered aid. "What the hell happened?"

By a way of answering, Iruka groaned with a vague gesture given around them. That done, he rubbed his flushed face with trembling hands, half of him aware of his half-naked state in the presence of an ANBU medic, and the other half of him riled up enough to throw fists at anyone who dared to point that out to him.

Not that the particular ANBU in his company seemed to care of such unspoken internal conflicts. To be fair for them, Iruka grudginly acknowledged that is was more likely a requirement for their position, given their average patient population. "Come on, then," the medic in question then said, and carefully took a hold of a tan shoulder. "I'll help you to your bed. Lean on me."

Iruka, no matter how much his temper was brewing right then, found no energy to decline the offer. He let the masked elite slung his arm around their armored shoulders before he was walked through the bedroom, leaving behind a half-naked jounin sprawled on a futon, with a haphazardly tossed hand towel covering the lower parts of the pale face. At the inquisitive glance from the chuunin, the ANBU merely shrugged and then continued their way into the training room, soon enough reaching the awaiting mattress. The dark-haired teacher sat down cautiously, as not to set anything else off in his addled synapses, and then proceeded to slump onto his bare back with a dull thud.

Hare, being the accused professional they were, knelt down beside the chuunin and put their palms on the evenly breathing man's chest, sliding them along the sides and probing the bruised areas that were visible. "Nothing seems to have gotten worse. I would say we can discard the need for gauze, if you feel like it."

"...I feel like causing a riot, to be honest," Iruka said while he looked up at the ceiling. If the nuisance in his presence was surprised by his unexpected statement, he couldn't make himself to care. "Half a step forward, several steps back, with nothing gained that could point us to the right direction. For a moment I thought—" He fell silent, swallowing down the words that made his eyes hurt.

Hare looked at the distraught man in their care, mulling over the expressions they could detect surfacing, just briefly, on the chuunin's face. "...I would say the contrary, if I may," they then said. Then they turned their gaze to seek out an another man, a shinobi of a fearsome lineage, who now slept dreamlessly beyond the threshold of another room. "I may find some satisfaction from tormenting him, as much as he makes me want to take up on developing poisons, but I have not seen Hatake quite like this before. I have never thought to see the day when he would be in such a state, and I have seen plenty of what he can turn himself into on a mission. So whatever you have managed to form in between yourself and him during these past few days has clearly not been a wasted effort on your end, Umino-san," they mused and turned back to look at the dark-skinned teacher, who stared back at them with a blush that they had grown accustomed to during their time in the current company. "Besides, considering the state that you're in right now tells me that should the situation not have ended the way it did, I would still be waiting behind the fence for the fireworks to stop."

"Why did you?" Iruka asked, his voice not completely following the same track as the puzzled, conflicted scowl that formed on his face. "You have been very clear with your opinion on that until now."

A thoughtful hum left the ANBU before they seemingly caught themself. "...There may come days when I will ask myself the same thing, to be honest." Considering the appalled look they were then given by the volatile mission room worker, Hare, against their nature, decided to elaborate, for once. "I wanted to be sure if whatever that is going on in here has not affected anyone else except you, Hatake and Cat. Tsunade-sama seems to be unaffected, as well as Shizune-san so far, and seeing that I have yet to confess any unnecessary feelings towards you, I'd say that we have gained something out of this, besides the obvious. This was a trial that had been set up for you."

Iruka was determined not to show his shock when he was able to make sense of the medic's explanation. "So you wanted to keep yourself one step ahead of the research results and decided that the best way to go about it was to beat me up first for a lecture and then set us up for some horny trial run in the shower, to see if either of us walks away from it alive?"

"You are jumping to unfair conclusions now, Umino-san," Hare countered calmly against the accusation thrown at them, as if they had, on some level, expected it. "I know where my loyalties lie, and you would be foolish to think that I would overstep my rank instead of consulting our Hokage first, nevermind being unprofessional enough to neglect my duties towards your health as your current warden. Finding a treatment that helps is my first priority, when it comes to these phenomena occurring between you and Hatake. The way how I handled some of the situations could use some reflecting, sure, but it was merely means to an end, at this point. Though I should have expected for something to go unexpectedly wrong, with all the evidence that I had gathered from Tsunade-sama's reports pointing towards that. Those failures fall on my shoulders, for that I am aware more than you give me credit for. More than anything, it was a calculated risk, which I could not share with either of you for not to screw up the results. I do however apologize for keeping you in the dark. My intention was never to harm either of you, and I would like to think that I have been clear on that. You have gone through a lot, Umino-san, more than I had accounted for, and for that, I would say that your performance has been flawless. If I were you, I would expect a fruit basket from our ANBU squad."

There really wasn't much that Iruka could say to that. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to, for that matter.

"With that in mind, more importantly..." Their appointed medical professional still continued after reading the room perfectly well and dismissing their observation, and they leaned down towards the dark-haired chuunin's face to cast a long, searching look into the dark, slanted eyes that stared right back at the eye holes in their mask. The silence held for a moment between them, a chuunin and an elite member of their ranks, before the masked assassin nodded, seemingly content with whatever they saw in the other's gaze, and then stood back up from crowding their patient's personal space. "It seems that whatever there was still lingering is now gone. For that, I'm glad."

Perplexed, Iruka rose up to sit on his bedding, but before he could ask what in the world the masked harbinger of chaos had meant by that, there was a faint groan that pulled his attention towards the dimly illuminated bedroom, him following the sight of the ANBU who had also turned to look at the other member of their two-man team, who had started to stir in his own bed. The sense of palpable relief that followed seeing that his mission partner was recovering would have disturbed him on any other day, but right then, right there, the dark-haired teacher could only put his face into his hands and sigh heavily.

The quiet hum of the barrier begun around him, only then alerting him to the lack of sound that had preceded it. He had not even noticed it.

"I'll go check up on him," Hare said unexpectedly amicably, as if aware of the effect that their discussion more likely had on the chuunin who had fallen silent on their bed, and grabbed their leather bag before they were even requested of what they had already begun to expect. "...You should get some rest, Umino-san. You've had a long day." With that, they took their leave towards the other room with their other patient, who was confusedly picking at the towel stuck to his face, leaving the chuunin alone with his thoughts as the doors were closed between him and the others.

Then, there was only him who remained in silence.

Keeping his eyes closed underneath his palms, his elbows on his bent knees, and still wearing nothing but a towel around his waist, Iruka absently listened to the starting conversation behind the closed doors, his ears catching the low, calm voice of the man he had only moments ago heard panting next to his ear. He counted his breaths as he concentrated on that one thing that kept him in check, only passingly noticing the quiet debate that seemed to happen between the two higher ranks, which he was not able to make sense of. However, if he was honest with himself, he didn't care much about that, at that moment, when he swallowed around a frustrated sob.

He had never liked the idea of how the best medicine should taste so bitter.