Chapter 4

"Ah! Iruka-sensei, there you are!" An unfamiliar girl leaned against the doorway to Iruka's classroom, breathing heavily. She was young, a chuunin most likely since Iruka knew most of the current genin from the Academy.

"Can I help you?" Iruka tapped the students' homework against the desk, aligning all the papers into a neat pile before sliding them into his satchel.

The girl seemed to catch her breath after a moment. She stepped into the room quickly and held out a folded piece of paper. "Kakashi-san asked me to deliver this to you."

"Oh." Iruka took the paper slowly. Hadn't Kakashi said he was going to meet Iruka personally after class?

The girl saluted sloppily, a slight grin on her face, and left. Iruka unfolded the note.

Running late. Meet me here. Kakashi. A rough depiction of the village filled the bottom half of the note, though only the major landmarks were noted - the Academy, the memorial stone, and the mountain. There was an X over part of the forest surrounding the village.

"Well, at least I know he thinks enough of me to be late, just like with everyone else," Iruka muttered to himself. He wondered if he had time to stop by his apartment quickly. It was on the way, and he'd been planning on asking Kakashi anyways since he hadn't wanted to bring his equipment to the class. There was no telling what his adorable brats would do if they'd somehow gotten their hands on his weapons.

He left the Academy at a light jog. If he hurried, he wouldn't be too late. A quick jump brought him on level with the edge of the Toumo's shop. He waved briefly at the shopkeeper as he caught the roof ledge in one hand and flipped up onto the rooftop. Iruka took a brief second to get his bearings and then he was off, hopping from rooftop to rooftop. A faint smile crosses his face as he ran. It'd been a long time since he'd had any need to hurry like this. He'd almost forgotten how much fun this could be, with the village spread out below him and the wind rushing across his face.

A running jump had him sailing through the air over the street. It only took a tiny bit of chakra for his feet to find purchase on the side of the railing. He quickly climbed over, letting the chakra fall away as he settled onto solid ground once more. Iruka dug his keys out of his pocket with a smile. One good thing about working with children, he certainly wasn't out of shape.

His bag hit the couch with a light thud as Iruka started tucking the weapons spread out on the table into their respective places. Ninja stars went into two pouches on the back of his belt. Kunai slipped into hidden pockets all over his clothing - up sleeves, inside his vest, into the tops of his boots. Thin filament wire was slipped into a tiny pocket on the inside of his shirt cuff, imperceptible to anyone but him. Smoke bombs were tucked into a large pouch at his right hip, medicine pouches and bandages went into the large pocket on his right leg.

Iruka ran his hands over his clothing and double-checked that everything was in place before locking the apartment door on his way out. Despite the fact that he was about to have his ass handed to him, possibly multiple times, he was actually looking forward to this a bit. It had been a very long time since he'd had a chance to spar with someone above the age of sixteen.

He reached the edge of the forest in minutes, not even half an hour after they'd originally planned on meeting. Hopefully Kakashi was still late. He'd hate to have to make Kakashi wait for him. Maybe he could leave his weapons in the teacher's lounge, sealed in a drawer. There was a chance the kids wouldn't get to them that way, at least not with a teacher watching.

The woods were quiet, not unusual for the area around a ninja village. Aside from a few birds, nothing living tended to stray this close to civilization, though right now even the birds were scarce. Iruka moved quietly towards the general area Kakashi had indicated. He followed what was probably an old deer trail, or maybe even the path Kakashi himself used whenever he came out here to train. The forest grew darker around him as he walked, leaves overhead blocking out the majority of the sun.

Minutes passed in silence. He could no longer see the village, or much beyond the path he was on. In the distance, a raven cawed. Iruka mentally counted his kunai while his fingers tapped in time to his breaths.

There was something in the woods. Iruka scratched his arm and dislodged a kunai into his palm.

He got five more steps down the path before the person moved. Iruka caught a glimpse of green, white, and red moving down from his left. He dodged rather than attacked. They were still within the city limits, so it could be a student or someone passing through. The dagger in the man's hand said he wasn't just passing through, the red and white mask said ANBU.

It didn't take him long to put two and two together. He staggered back a step as the masked figured lashed out. "K-kakashi?"

The man didn't even pause in recognition. Iruka jumped to the side to avoid another slash. Did they have any former ANBU who had become missing-nin? There was the possibility that his opponent wasn't actually ANBU, just wearing the mask. Iruka knew at least seven places that sold similar mask or masks that could be altered, and there were even more such shops during festivals.

Wood chips flew below his feet as the dagger briefly lodged in the tree Iruka had been standing on. He bounced off a tree on the opposite side of the path, sending a kunai sailing towards his attacker before spinning off to another tree. As expected, he missed, but it accomplished his intention of letting the man know he was no longer willing to play. Assuming, of course, that this man didn't actually intend on killing him. He was slowly starting to doubt that assumption, just like he was starting to doubt this was Kakashi.

The dagger almost caught him in the leg. Iruka ran up a tree. His attacker followed, finally seeming to grow serious in trying to hit Iruka. It was obvious the man was holding back, though if this wasn't Kakashi he didn't understand why. A real ANBU wouldn't have given him the chance to defend himself. He might not even have known the ANBU was there before he'd died, though he liked to think he was at least a bit more observant than most.

If this was sparring, it was far deadlier than any Iruka had ever participated in outside of his training for the Chuunin Exams years ago. Iruka dodged again, bare seconds faster than his opponent. He had a choice to make, and quickly. If this was Kakashi testing him, then he didn't want to go all-out to avoid hurting Kakashi. If it wasn't, he had to or he was going to get killed as soon as whoever it was behind the mask decided to stop playing.

If it was Kakashi, he'd fought far deadlier foes than Iruka, and therefore if Iruka did manage to hit him it was because Kakashi let him.

It wasn't much of a decision after all.

Iruka jumped and rolled, discretely gathering twigs in his hands as he fell off the path several feet from his attacker. He kept his lips concealed as he sprang to his feet, the twigs changing into kunai in the shadow of his open vest. His attacker was three steps away. Lunging back with a loud cry, Iruka threw the illusionary kunai in a wide pattern, forcing his attacker back long enough to pull out five real shuriken.

If this was a rogue ANBU attacking him, then he didn't stand a chance on his own, which mean in order to live - game terms or not - he had to make it back to the village. The village which was several yards away through the woods, then the clearing beyond it, then past a couple streets until he could get to someone that could actually help him. And, of course, there was the strange man who just happened to be between Iruka and the way back to the village.

He was going to have to be creative.

Iruka jumped onto the nearest tree and ran up. Predictably, his attacker followed, matching Iruka's pace effortlessly two trees away. He waited until they were nearly to the top, where the branches grew thinnest before he pulled two kunai from the back of his vest and threw, aiming not at the fake ANBU, who dodged predictably, but at the branches around him. The ANBU leaped and Iruka fell, letting gravity carry him out of close range. Wood fell with him. Iruka brushed one branch with his fingertips and brushed it with his chakra, marking it for future reference.

His attacker was waiting for him below, the sharp metal of two kunai - probably Iruka's own - flying up to meet him. He jumped back towards his original position and threw the branch in his hand, followed by five more shuriken. The ANBU dodged them all, letting the branch sail back towards the village as Iruka had intended. He pulled a handful of smoke bombs from the pouch and threw them, covering the entire path with smoke.

Quickly, Iruka changed his trajectory by bouncing off the tree next to him, pushing himself towards the village. Jutsu rolled nearly-silently from his lips as he switched places with the branch and switched their appearances simultaneously.

Flying through the air as a branch reminded him of running through the village, like he was the single spot of calm amidst the chaos around him.

Then the tree branch in front of him morphed into an arm holding a dagger and he dropped unexpectedly, caught not by the blade but by the crook of his attacker's arm applied directly to his stomach. Iruka hit the forest floor gasping for breath. The dagger slid into its sheath and Kakashi raised his mask as he squatted next to Iruka.

"Not bad for someone who almost let a rogue ninja murder him." Kakashi's face seemed stuck halfway between a smile and a frown. His lips smiled but his eyes nearly glared at him in displeasure. "At least now I know where Naruto learned that particular trick."

He didn't have to ask what trick. "I knew it was you." It wasn't a good excuse, but it was all he had. And, he'd been right, even if he'd had his doubt. No need to mention those to Kakashi, however.

"The whole time?" Kakashi was calling his bluff.

Iruka shrugged. He didn't think Kakashi would want to hear his logic, that if Iruka had been fighting someone actually trying to kill him, he'd have been dead long ago.

"You were holding back," Kakashi accused.

"So were you."

"Yes, well...." Kakashi's words died off with a glare. The jounin stared at him for a minute before offering his hand. "Come on."

Iruka let Kakashi pull him to his feet. His chest hurt, but not enough that it was more than a minor distraction. He'd functioned with far worse before.

"I should probably be grateful that you fought back at all," Kakashi groused as he moved along the path, picking up fallen weapons. His smile was slowly changing into an angry frown. "Hell, I wonder, if I'd come at you looking like one of your exes, would you have just let me kill you on the spot?"

"Hey!" Iruka gripped the kunai he'd just plucked from a tree trunk tightly. "I'm not fucking suicidal."

Kakashi turned quickly, both eyes blazing. Iruka took an involuntary step back. Here was the ANBU hiding behind Kakashi's smiling face. "Then why the fuck did you-" Kakashi's mouth snapped shut, and suddenly he was back to normal, though still obviously annoyed. "I'm sorry." The apology sounded strained, but it was more than Iruka ever would have expected. "I shouldn't have said that."

Iruka kept his eyes on Kakashi as he bent to pick up two of his shuriken. Kakashi's words had stung, mostly because they pointed out flaws in himself that he'd been trying to ignore for years. He turned away from Kakashi to scan the nearby brush, trying to see where the other three from this set had landed.

"No," Iruka admitted softly, "you're right. Mostly. The type like Maki... well, give Maki another week or two, and I wouldn't have gone down without a fight. When I fall for a guy, I fall hard, but even then, they only get one chance to knock me around before I wise up. There's never a second time." He spotted two shuriken under a bush. As he squatted down, he saw the third hiding in the leaves. "But the other type, the ones where we just didn't click so we mutually called it quits..." Iruka glanced over at the jounin and almost forgot what he'd been about to say.

Kakashi was watching him intently, not even bothering to look for fallen weapons anymore. And the expression on Kakashi's face... was something Iruka didn't want to think about right now, because it was too close to pity and something else. He wasn't going to think about it.

"If it was one of them," Iruka forced himself to continue, "or even one of my former students or a friend, like Genma or..." His eyes seemed drawn back to the silent jounin. "...you... If any of them seriously tried to kill me, I'd be dead before my mind even finished working through the fact that they'd drawn a weapon on me. And I don't think I could fight back, because the thought of hurting someone I care about is far worse to me than the thought of being physically hurt myself."

"And that's why we're here." Kakashi pulled the mask off with one hand and hung it on a branch off to the side of the path. "Now, you've got five shuriken stuck in trees over there," Kakashi pointed, "and four kunai there and there." A slow smile grew on Kakashi's face. Iruka had a feeling he wasn't going to like what Kakashi was about to say. "Gather them up and then we'll start again, and we're not stopping until either you scratch me or it gets too dark to see."

Iruka resisted the urge to groan. This was karmic revenge for all the times he'd kept his students practicing the same drills over and over until they got them right. He plucked the first of the shuriken from the tree Kakashi had indicated.

"Oh," Kakashi's voice carried through the woods, "that trick with the twigs was cute, but from now on, if you're trying to hit me with anything, it had better be a real weapon."

Iruka did groan then, inside his head at least. This was going to be a long evening.