Trapped Dolphin

Title: Trapped Dolphin
Author: Somnambulist_dreams
Summary: Iruka has suicidal issues, and Kakashi seems to be out to get him.
Rating: NC-17 (for later chapters)
Pairing(s): Kakashi x Iruka
Feedback: Oh yes please!
Characters: mainly Kakashi and Iruka … and Naruto and the gang, and the other teachers
Betas: None. Would you like to be one? Hehe… feel free to tell me. ^_^
Disclaimer: I'm not filthy rich and I don't own Naruto or any other characters in the anime. I'm not gettin' any money from doin' this either, awright? Though, if I did, I'd be living in paradise...
Author's Notes:

Warning: This is YAOI, so if you're not into those kinds of stuff, well, it's not my fault anymore if you read on.

One other thing, this is my first fic I had the courage to post on the net, so any comments, suggestions, or violent reactions are very much appreciated.

Sorry, no lemon here as well. I’m beginning to think my fic’s out of place here at AFF, but maybe it’ll feel right at home when I finish it. Please bear with me.

Comments, suggestions, and violent reactions are still very much appreciated.

Chapter 2: Betrayal

The sharp edge sunk into his flesh again, reopening his wounds every single time. He reveled in the familiar feeling of the warm blood flowing from his wrists. He watched it flow down his arms and into the bathwater, swirling in the tub and tainting the water with a faint red. He turned the shower on and pulled the plug to drain the water. He closed his eyes as he ducked his head under the spray of warm water. Then suddenly his eyes shot wide open. Had he just imagined it? No. He had definitely heard it. Someone had broken into his apartment.

He left the water running and silently but swiftly got out of the shower. Turning the shower off can alert the intruder, he would have to remember to turn it off later. He took a hand towel and wiped the blood from his wrists, and wrapped his arms with bandage as quickly as he could. If he was going to confront a possible criminal in his home, he might as well do it like he was in perfect shape- and with clothes on. He grabbed for his navy blue boxers that were thankfully in the bathroom. He didn’t want to chase a criminal in the streets of Konoha butt naked. He was a teacher, for crying out loud. He put them on with lightening speed as he pressed his ear against the door, listening for any kind of movement outside, but hearing none. Maybe it was just his imagination. But, if there’s one thing he learned with being a ninja and teaching little kids to be ninjas, it’s to always trust your instincts.

He gripped his kunai tightly with one hand, and with one swift movement, he pushed his door wide open ready to strike anyone who dared to break in his apartment. His eyes grew wide when he saw that nothing was disturbed in his room. So far, there were no signs that anyone even went in. However, when he moved deeper into his room, he noticed one minuscule detail. His window was half an inch open!

Then just as he realized this detail, he felt a movement behind him and he dodged quickly as a shuriken went whooshing past his ear, catching some of his unbound hair. He turned around and several more shuriken were thrown at him, all hitting him square on the chest. Then poof! Iruka was engulfed in smoke and when the smoke subsided, a tall lampshade was in his place, riddled with shurikens.

‘Darn, I liked that lamp,’ Iruka thought as he hid behind his study table and waited for another movement. The room was dark, he couldn’t see the perpetrator, but he knew he was there. It was a shinobi! A well-trained one in fact. Iruka instinctively grabbed towards his thigh only to realize he wasn’t wearing his shinobi uniform. He had left his kunai holder on a table at the far end of the room, his vest and other equipment along with it. He cursed his luck that he was only armed with a single kunai. He smirked darkly. ‘That means I have to make do with what little I’ve got.’

Iruka jumped out from behind the table and charged his assailant foolishly head on. He got a good look at his face, and he gasped in surprise and utter bewilderment. “Kakashi-sensei?!” he gasped before his assailant threw kunais at him, and he was hit several times over. Then poof! Iruka vanished.

Kakashi was taken aback. “Bunshin no jutsu?” he whispered.

A million and one thoughts came rushing into Iruka’s mind at that instant. Was this really Kakashi-sensei, or an enemy pretending to be him? No, it couldn’t be. Why would an enemy pretend to be Kakashi-sensei and then try to kill him? He was but a lowly chuunin. Unimportant compared to countless other more powerful ninjas. It just wouldn’t make any sense. Which leaves him with the only other possible explanation. That it was really Kakashi-sensei that was trying to kill him. But for what reason, he had absolutely no idea. Was Kakashi working for the enemy now? Or did he suspect Iruka to be the enemy? He couldn’t be quite sure. ‘Well,’ he thought grimly, ‘if it really is Kakashi-sensei that’s targeting me, I’d be dead in no time at all.’

Concentrating chakra in his hands, he took the table and threw it in Kakashi’s direction. Kakashi immediately punched the table, splitting it in half. Then, out of nowhere, Iruka charged him again, kunai in hand. He blocks it with his own kunai, and for a split second, Iruka’s dark eyes locked gazes with his own as he whispered, “You can kill me anytime, but I won’t go down without a fight.”

Kakashi chuckled. “As you wish,” he replied, his other hand appearing out of nowhere, another kunai in hand. It took Iruka by surprise, but he managed to dodge the full force of the attack. He stumbled several feet away from Kakashi, one hand on his chest where a nasty slash was bleeding profusely. If he hadn’t been able to move in the very last split second, he would probably be lying dead on the ground, a kunai stuck in his heart.

Iruka still managed a smirk as he spoke again. “Don’t know exactly why you are doing this, but I’ll play along,” he said before raising his arm to his side and smashing the glass of the window and immediately jumping out of the apartment. He knew if he would have at least a small chance of survival, he needed to get out of that small cramped space. He jumped up on the rooftop, the sting of the freezing tiles on his bare feet and the chilly air on his hair and skin still damp from his bath startled him a bit, but he wasn’t deterred. He sprinted, to where he did not know. He stopped immediately when Kakashi appeared in front of him again.

“Where are you going, Iruka-sensei?” he said in a teasing voice.

“Thought I’d level the field a bit more,” Iruka said. What level the field? The field’s greatly slanted in favor of Kakashi. He thought it a grave insult that Kakashi would not even use his sharingan eye on him. Of course, he’d never use it on a weak chuunin like him.

Iruka scratched the scar on his nose as he smiled sheepishly. “Then there’s this little thing about me hating to clean out blood from my sheets.”

“This isn’t a joke, Iruka-sensei. I will kill you,” Kakashi warned.

It was quite chilling to hear Kakashi utter those words. Iruka never imagined for an instant in his life that he would feel the wrath of Konoha’s legendary copy-nin, but now that it is all too real, his thoughts suddenly turned to Naruto. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. If Kakashi had really allied with Konoha’s enemies, which wasn’t entirely impossible, then this must mean that Konoha is in grave danger, not to mention Naruto and the others who trust him so much. Naruto. He would probably be the only reason why Kakashi is trying to kill Iruka. Iruka was close to the boy. Closer than anyone. And if he could get rid of him, he could manipulate Naruto any way he wanted. He could even make him release the kyuubi inside him.

“Just tell me this, Kakashi-sensei, since you are just so eager to get rid of me,” Iruka began. He steeled himself. He realized if his suspicions are correct, he had to survive this, if only for Naruto. “What country are you working for?” he asked.

Kakashi gave a hollow laugh as he took two kunais and twirled them around on his finger. “Why would you assume I had betrayed Konoha? If I had indeed turned against this country, would I not be targeting the hokage instead of some small fry schoolteacher such as yourself?”

“Why then would you be intent on killing me? Unless it’s all for a bigger picture. Unless you’re going to use my death as an advantage to manipulate someone,” Iruka revealed his thoughts.

“Oh?” Kakashi said in an amused tone. “And who would this someone be then?”

“Naruto,” Iruka said.

Kakashi’s visible eye turned grim, and Iruka sensed that he must have been smiling a devious smile under that mask. He chuckled. “I’ve always admired your intelligence, Iruka-sensei. But I also knew you were too smart for your own good,” he said as he reached a hand to his tai-ate, smoothing his palm over it, and when he put his hand down, it revealed the infamous musical note insignia of the country of sound. “Didn’t I tell you that you mother the kid too much?” he continued. “So with you gone, murdered in cold blood, well it’s only very easy to fuel the hatred in Naruto’s heart.”

Iruka was expecting this, but when his suspicions had been proven right on the mark, it felt like he was thrown off a cliff and hit by a hundred raging bulls. Panic rung in his ears as he desperately tried to come up with a good plan to survive until such time when he can tell someone of Kakashi’s treachery. He had to warn someone! “You’re sick, Kakashi-sensei. I never knew you would sink to such a low level as being Orochimaru’s lackey,” Iruka told him.

“Well, like they say, I know which side my bread is buttered. Let’s get this on, shall we? I still have to practice my speech to comfort Naruto when he sees your mangled body,” Kakashi said.

“You bastard. I’ll do everything I can so that you won’t ever have to lay a hand on Naruto again,” Iruka growled, crouching and suddenly bursting into a sprint towards Kakashi. He tried to strike with his kunai again, but Kakashi just deflected it and sent him flying several feet away. Before Iruka could even land his feet on the mossy roof tiles, he felt the sting of cold metal on his abdomen and realized that Kakashi had just appeared right in front of him, his eye upturned in what seemed like a pleased expression, and stabbed him with a kunai on his abdomen. Iruka withdrew immediately, thanking all his luck that the kunai had only sunk an inch in him before he was able to regain his footing and back away immediately. He landed with one knee on the tiles near the slanted ledge of the roof. He pressed his hand on his abdomen as blood gushed out of the open wound. The sight of so much blood spilling from him didn’t bother him much. Even the sting was one he thought he actually got used to already. ‘Just an inch,’ he thought. But an inch was all it might take for his guts to spill out, if ever that were the case. He had to be more careful and think of a plan.

He caught sight of a light at the headquarters. Tsunade-sama’s room. He thanked his luck once more that Tsunade felt like doing overnight work. He would make the headquarters tower his destination. If he could let Tsunade know, then all would be alright. Kakashi would think twice before he went up against the hokage herself. Better her than some other ninja Kakashi could take out immediately. Even if he had to die, he had to let Tsunade know that Kakashi had betrayed them first.

He stole a glance at where he kneeled, and an epiphany struck him. Perfect, Iruka thought. He righted himself immediately and tried to muster a perfect fighting stance despite the potentially lethal wound on his abdomen.

“Why do you resist, Iruka-sensei? You do remember that I am far stronger than you,” Kakashi said as he slowly walked to Iruka, and suddenly vanished only to reappear right in front of him. He gave a devastatingly powerful blow to Iruka’s gut, right where he had stabbed him, and Iruka spat out blood, aiming it at Kakashi’s visible eye. This surprised Kakashi, but he quickly shielded his face with his arms. Iruka took this opportunity and lunged at Kakashi with his kunai, which by some miracle he still had. He had but grazed Kakashi’s vest when the man took a couple of steps back to dodge his attack.

“You might be stronger,” Iruka began. Kakashi barely caught a glimpse of Iruka smirking weakly, his hands channeling chakra on the roof, before the tiles in his feet collapsed and sent him falling into the apartment below. Somewhere between the roof giving way and him falling, he heard Iruka say, “but I’m smarter.”

He found himself lying on a pile of rubble in Iruka’s living room a split second later, dusty and with small bruises in some places. He chuckled as he stood up. “I certainly didn’t expect this,” he said as he brushed off the dirt from his uniform, and became irked when he saw the slice on his vest that Iruka’s kunai had made. He also hadn’t realized that measly attempt at an attack had left a fine red slash on his abdomen. “Oh well,” he said. “Gotta get him back for this,” he thought out loud.

Iruka went down to the street and made a dash for the headquarters as soon as Kakashi fell into his apartment. He knew that wouldn’t stall the experienced jounin much. But it might buy him a couple of seconds’ head start, and those couple of seconds might spell either certain death or a chance at victory. He hadn’t even made it half way to the headquarters when he heard the barking of several dogs. Kakashi’s mutts, Iruka thought. Somehow he had to lose the dogs. He caught sight of several barrels of some very strong wine lined up just outside a beerhouse right up front. He stabbed each one with his kunai as he passed by, spilling its contents all over the street. Maybe the pungent smell of wine would deter the dogs for a short while. Then again, maybe it won’t. He cursed himself for not knowing the inner workings of some higher-level shinobi techniques. Nevertheless, he was grateful that even if he hasn’t been in a life or death situation for so long, his instinct and skills hadn’t dulled that much. Otherwise, he would be dead by now.

He only had a couple of blocks more before he reached the headquarters, but somehow he knew reaching it this easily would be too good to be true. And he was right for a couple of seconds later Kakashi had caught up with him and was now chasing him with dozens and dozens of shuriken. One grazed his shoulder, another one scratched his arm, and a couple more sliced his legs, but he did not slow down. In fact he increased his pace, and jumped up the nearest building, ready to spring himself forth towards Tsunade’s window. But before he could even jump, Kakashi was but several feet away from him.

“Why do you try so hard to live, Iruka-sensei? You know I can’t very well let you squeal to the great hokage,” Kakashi said.

“I know that. I just thought I might as well try. Besides… I made a promise to Naruto that I’d treat him to ramen tomorrow. And I’ll do everything I can to keep that promise,” Iruka said.

Kakashi chuckled darkly. “Naruto? But Naruto’s on a mission right now,” Kakashi said.

“What?” Iruka asked, anger and bewilderment evident in his voice.

“Something wrong, Iruka-sensei? …You sure? You’d tell me if there’s anything wrong, right?” he said, in the same tone of voice that Naruto used earlier that night.

Iruka felt like ice-cold water had just been dumped on his head. It wasn’t Naruto he was talking to that night. It was Kakashi pretending to be Naruto. And to think he felt so guilty lying to the boy. He was so fumed by now that he charged Kakashi with everything he got, momentarily forgetting what he was supposed to do. “You bastard!” he screamed as he attacked.

Kakashi threw several more shuriken at him, but Iruka dodged them, and when he was about to strike at him, Kakashi took out two kunais and caught Iruka’s kunai in the middle, and snatched it out of his hands. He quickly tried to stab Iruka on the chest, trying to end the battle then and there, but Iruka, now unarmed, shielded himself with his bandaged arms. It was the first time Kakashi noticed the sloppy bandages on his arms, and when he slashed them, he tore off most of the bandages, revealing to his sight several small self-inflicted slashes that were still very fresh and had started to bleed.

He hadn’t noticed he was staring at them until Iruka hid them from his view and turned around and dashed towards Tsunade’s window. Kakashi tried to move, he knew he should, but he found his feet too heavy. So he just reached for shurikens and threw it at Iruka, albeit sloppily and half-heartedly.

Iruka ran towards Tsunade’s window like he’d never ran before. He was so shocked that his enemy had seen his wounds, and was sure it’d be the end of him. He remembered suddenly why he was running from Kakashi a while ago, and that was to warn Tsunade about him. That’s why he ran. He almost let his anger get the better of him, and for a moment he lost sight of his true objective. But not anymore. He would get to Tsunade no matter what.

He concentrated all his remaining chakra onto his feet as he crouched low and jumped as high as he could so that he could reach Tsunade’s window. ‘Kakashi could definitely take me out mid-flight,’ he thought, but no onslaught of attacks came. He lunged forward and broke Tsunade’s window. He rolled in the room, and when he looked up, desperate to tell Tsunade of Kakashi’s betrayal, he found Tsunade lounging comfortably on her chair. She took one nonchalant peak at the badly wounded Iruka from behind her papers and muttered, “It’s about time.”

TBC

AN: To all those who reviewed, thank you very, very much. I would love to hear from you guys again. I will try to update on a weekly basis, if I'm not too busy.

Again, sorry there's still no lemon here. I don't like to rush these things.

Until next time,

^_^ somnambulist_dreams ^_^