Retrieval

Again, please forgive my shaky jutsu/seal logic and whatnot, this is from my earlier days of fanhood. Thanks in advance for reading. I hope you enjoy it.


The two ninja were racing towards Konoha territory jumping effortlessly from tree to tree. Kakashi’s occasional glances towards Iruka had been met by an increasingly fuzzy eyed smile until finally he forced a stop.

“We shouldn’t,” Iruka said even as his eyes refused to stay open. “It’s almost dusk now and Naruto hasn’t shown up yet. We have to reach the medic-nin before my drugs wear off completely.”

“How long?”

“They were supposed to last for twenty-four hours. I took them just before I was captured. I should still have ten hours, but they do seem to be wearing off.” He leaned heavily against a tree trunk and sighed. “Naruto has a stimulant that’s supposed to prolong the reaction, but…” Bright brown eyes sprung open to look around wildly. “He should be here by now. What if something happened to him?”

“Naruto?” Kakashi shrugged. “He’s been following us for a short time. He should be catching up soon.”

“How?”

“I recognized his chakra earlier. He took up the rear guard position during our run, but slowed down for some reason.” Kakashi turned to stare into the shadows and nodded.

“I thought I felt some chakra following, but it’s dead now.” A young blonde boy emerged from behind a tree and smiled wide at Iruka. “I guess I got something you want, huh?”

The brunette only glared as he caught a small vial the blonde boy threw at him. “Could you have been any later? I feel like the kids had fun using me as their Friday target.”

Naruto glanced anxiously at Kakashi after watching Iruka drink the entire vial. “You don’t remember us yet, do you Kakashi-sensei?”

He shrugged as answer and reached a hand out to Iruka. “We should get going.”

“How much do you remember, Kakashi-sensei,” Iruka asked as he took the offered hand in a strong grip.

“Enough to trust both of you,” was the quick reply as he jumped back into the treetops.

**(……….)**

They reached the ANBU team without sensing any pursuit, then Konoha within a few days after. Kakashi had watched and wondered at how heavily Iruka had slept the first night they were allowed to. The medic-nin had simply called it a withdrawal symptom and checked his pulse. Now both he and the still sleeping Iruka were being checked into the hospital.

The nurse that led him away from his retrieval team was short and blonde with a hitch in her step. She spoke to him with familiarity even though he wasn’t able to place her face anywhere in his memories, but Kakashi did as he was told and changed into loose hospital clothes before stepping into a darkened room. He was greeted by five white clad medics in concealing jumpsuits and a well endowed blonde woman who stood at the far edge of an intricately drawn seal that adorned the floor.

“Lay down in the center, brat,” the blonde woman ordered him. “Shizune, make sure his head is placed properly.”

She stepped over to him and knelt once he was positioned to her satisfaction. “I know you don’t remember me, but you will once you wake up. I’ll welcome you home then.” She slid her hands down his masked face closing his eyelids. “Sleep now, Hatake Kakashi. You’ll feel better after a good night’s rest.”

**(……….)**

He woke to sun in his eyes and the smell of dog in his nose, which was noted as being unmasked even though his sharingan eye had been covered with a soft patch. A breath of movement by his fingertips had him straining to see Pakkun lying beside him. Kakashi reached out and scratched his pug’s nose with a smile. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

The small dog lifted his head and laughed. “We’ve been missing out on steak and treats. You have three years to make up for.”

Kakashi could only chuckle as he sat up and viewed his entire pack of dogs sprawled across the floor of his private room. “I feel like something tasty, too.” He glanced at the bedside table and grabbed the small scrap of cloth left there with a thankful sigh. “At least they still remembered,” he murmured to himself as he slipped the soft mask over his head and made sure it was secure.

“Feel better now,” Pakkun asked with a snort.

Lean legs slid off the edge of the bed and tested themselves against the floor. “I do feel better,” Kakashi answered happily as he stepped into the center of the gathered dogs and sat down with his summons surrounding him. He smiled wide as the youngest of his pack crawled into his lap and whined for attention. “Definitely better.”

Tsunade and Shizune came to check on Kakashi late in the afternoon after having been told he hadn’t emerged or begun to cause his normal problems when confined to the hospital. The two women could only blink in amazed silence at the image of one of Konoha’s most powerful ninja surrounded by a very protective looking pack of dogs while he comfortably slept leaning against the biggest bulldog either of them had ever seen. A clearing throat sound from one of the dogs caught their attention and their wide open eyes. The only familiar dog out of the pack, Pakkun waved a paw from his spot near one of Kakashi’s legs.

“Something we can help you with?” He asked in a low voice. Every other dog with the exception of the fluff eared pup in Kakashi’s lap all had at least one eye opened and trained on them just waiting and daring them to wake their beloved master up.

Tsunade shook her head. “No, Pakkun. We just wanted to make sure he had woken up alright.”

The pug nodded. “He woke up fine, remembered us all and seemed lucid. That was a few hours ago. He was hungry when he woke up, and we are too. We all prefer steak.” Several of the other dogs chuckled at Pakkun’s words along with Tsunade who nodded agreeably.

“It’s little enough for Konoha to pay for what he went through. We’re very proud of your master, pup. I’ll have enough sent up for you all.” She waved and turned to leave. Shizune closed the door with a soft click and followed after.

“Steak, Tsunade-sama? For all of them?”

The Hokage shrugged as her heels clicked their way down the hospital corridors. “We separated them for three years and made Kakashi undergo an experimental mind altering jutsu that I still don’t trust enough to use a third time. Iruka’s results aren’t the happy ending I wanted to see for this mission.”

“He’s still asleep, isn’t he? The jutsu wore off properly, but I guess you’re right. Even the ANBU medic thought something went wrong when he didn’t wake up after that first night. He told me Kakashi kept asking about him.” Shizune grabbed a few paper covered clipboards from the ward desk they stopped at. “I’ll take care of the food orders, Tsunade-sama. Why don’t you go check in on Umino-san again.” The dark haired medic handed one of the boards to her superior with a smile. “Maybe he’s woken up by now.”

Tsunade raised a questioning eyebrow, but took the chart and went back down the hall to where Iruka slept. She dropped the clipboard in a nearby slot and opened the door to the silent room.

Umino Iruka’s room was dark, the nurse hadn’t yet turned the lights on now that it was dark outside. His quiet form still lay on the bed in the same way he’d been placed earlier that day after the medics had removed any remaining traces of his ordeal. The only sign that he’d been tortured was a thin white scar in the shape of the Sound sigil on his forehead, and even that would fade after a week of skin creams.

Tsunade sighed as she touched a glowing hand to his forehead. A quick diagnostic jutsu told her everything was in order, but she couldn’t help feeling a sense of trepidation that she hadn’t experienced with Kakashi. She’d used a different type of memory block on Iruka than she had on the Copy-nin since his was meant to be short-term and only used in case Kabuto had attempted to mess with his mind. It was based upon the long-term block she’d used on Kakashi, but was made to wear off quickly instead of having to be manually removed.

The memory block jutsu had seemed like such a good idea, and Konoha’s leading researchers had been working on a usable version of it for decades. The fact that they had come to her as the new Hokage with a workable version of it right when she needed to know what Orochimaru’s plans were seemed to be such providence that she hadn’t looked too hard and immediately asked her chosen spy if he would submit to the experiment. Kakashi had listened, questioned, and then agreed. Within weeks of Sandaime dying, the Copy-nin had been prepped and sealed; his memories locked away in his subconscious, deeper down than where Kabuto’s forbidden jutsu memory wipe could go. His orders were hidden away in his dreams only to be known in a passive way, not to be acted upon unless certain situations came up, wanted bits of information that could be passed on for Konoha’s benefit.

The three years of secret messages had seemed to go perfectly for everyone involved. Kakashi had been captured near death and subsequently had his mind taken over by Sound. Even Orochimaru knew he was too valuable of a shinobi to let die as an enemy. Sound had gained a ninja, but the block had worked perfectly. When he woke after Kabuto’s ministrations he wasn’t the ninja he had been before. Instead of someone who could be ordered to kill his own people he became a lazy, perverted torturer; someone who stayed at the headquarters and listened. He was an agent who could unknowingly administer mercy to any ninja brought to him and yet still stay in Orochimaru’s good graces by the quality of the information he withdrew from his targets before their deaths.

His mission had been thoroughly thought out by the best tacticians Konoha had to offer. Nobody had wanted to go up against the Copy-nin as an enemy so taking him out of the fighting equation had been the best option. They also wanted to make sure that his reputation as a loyal ninja of Konoha was protected, and if anyone had seen him fighting under the Sound sigil that would have been destroyed. When he was retrieved the stigma of being a traitor would have stayed with him even if the truth was forced down the village’s throats, and Tsunade had not wanted that to happen to one who was proving to be the most loyal of all of Konoha’s ninja. She had planned on protecting him even as she set him up to be put into a danger he could possibly never return from.

And it had all worked perfectly. Kakashi had left on a dummy spy mission, been captured and brought into the Sound fold; been able to successfully send both information and a lost genin home and now he himself had arrived home thanks to the efforts of the Chunnin lying quiet as death on his bed in front of Tsunade.

“You need to wake up, Iruka,” Tsunade whispered fondly. “Your lesson plan will only last for another week, and the substitute is being driven crazy by your kids and their questions.”

“He twitched earlier,” a dull voice sounded from the darkened corner. Tsunade whirled around and immediately recognized the bright hair even in the dim light.

“Naruto.”

The young ninja stood and came over to stand on the opposite side of Iruka’s bed from her. “It was just a finger, nothing much. I waited a bit and nothing else happened so I didn’t call for you. He’s been asleep for too long now, hasn’t he?”

Tsunade nodded, unable to be less than truthful with the young man. “I won’t lie to you. He should have woken up around midday.”

Naruto nodded. “He’s stubborn, probably enjoying the long break.”

“Everything went fine until he fell asleep. Shizune mentioned that maybe Kabuto used a different jutsu on him than he normally does, something that may be messing with the effects we’re supposed to be seeing. We have no way of telling.”

“It might be a while, but he’ll wake up, Tsunade-baa-san. He promised me before he left.” Naruto placed a hand on his former sensei’s still arm. “He’s got too much to live for to die now, much less sleep the rest of his life away.”

Tsunade quietly watched the young man while he stared at Iruka, the first person who had accepted him as family. She could almost see the changes the past few years had caused written on that too young face. He was only fifteen and had faced circumstances that any normal ninja would have run screaming away from or at least broken into fragile pieces because of.

“Where’s Sasuke?” she inquired to break him out of his reverie.

The blond looked up and smiled. “He was here earlier, but wanted to turn in a mission report. He’s still reeling that you made him Iruka’s substitute.” Naruto laughed shortly. “I caught him for dinner the night before last and he was so funny carrying this huge pile of papers to grade. I think he’ll definitely stay away from the idea of ever being an academy teacher after this.”

Tsunade nodded. “Well, his four year probation will end in another two years, and then his options will open up. I might be able to persuade the council to allow him to participate in the Chuunin exams this year, though. There are still some elders alive that are looking forward to having an Uchiha on the active duty list again. They’ll push it through for him.”

Naruto nodded in reply and went to sit in his shadowy corner again. “I’ll be napping in here unless you find a mission for me. Sasuke knows where to find me.”

The Hokage shrugged as she stepped out of the darkened room. It didn’t surprise her that the young boy wanted to stay until Iruka woke up. She decided to check up on them tomorrow morning, but her desk and several piles of paperwork were currently calling. Tsunade left the hospital already looking forward to sneaking out for sake later.

~(ooo)~

Kakashi had woken to the smell of food being brought into his room, lots of it. He hadn’t kept himself from laughing as Pakuun explained about the steaks and the Hokage. Only the obstinate pug would dare to make such a request. He opened his own dinner plate and was disappointed to see a healthy stir fry full of vegetables. Pakuun had snickered at him.

With the idea of getting some decent food and after finding some clothes in the small drawers provided for him in his hospital room, Kakashi made his way out and down the hallway. He received some odd looks as he and his dogs passed the main ward desk and the more obvious exits and headed farther down past closed doors to a window he knew led straight to home. As he passed one door the name on the chart left outside jumped out at him; Umino Iruka.

He stood before the door for some time before grabbing the chart and reading it through. His youngest pup actually whined at him before he realized he’d been staring unseeing at two words for too long, Recovery Unexpected. He opened the door without a further thought and stepped in.

The room was dark, only the moon shone light through the thinly curtained windows allowing him to see Iruka lying still. He took the few steps over to the bedside and stared down at the man who had brought him home. The silvered light of the moon highlighted the defects on his face, the long scar across his nose and the thin Sound sigil on his forehead. Kakashi reached out and ran a finger over those light lines and sighed deeply.

“Thank you,” he whispered to the still form and bent low. “Thank you,” he said again just before placing a chaste, mask covered kiss on Iruka’s lips. He lifted his head slightly and moved so the tips of their noses were touching. “I’ll see you when…”

“Kakashi-Sensei!” The yell that rang out from the shadowed end of the room had the copy-nin jumping and reaching for his kunai before he realized he had none. His fingers were already forming a random jutsu before his mind processed the image of Naruto now standing where the moonlight could illuminate him.

“Naruto,” Kakashi greeted him surprised he didn’t stumble over that one word. He lifted a hand and rubbed the back of his head slightly embarrassed that he hadn’t sensed the boy’s presence earlier.

“Do it again,” the blonde ordered.

Kakashi blinked and paused all actions as he stared at his former student. “What?”

“Do it… Kiss him again.” The younger shinobi moved to the other side of the bed and peered at Iruka. “He moved when you did that, more than before.”

Kakashi looked down at Iruka then up again to the demanding Naruto. He had no problem with the idea of kissing Iruka again, but not in front of the boy. His newly remembered memories of the chuunin were of a fiercely protective man who thought of Naruto as his son more than a student. Strangers were not supposed to go around kissing fathers in front of their sons. He was about to mention that when Naruto interrupted him.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. I don’t care, just kiss him again. His entire hand moved, not just a finger twitch.” Naruto’s face was masked by darkness, but Kakashi could hear the desperation in his voice. “Please, Kakashi-sensei.”

Later Kakashi would wonder why he was so weak against that plea, but right then he could do nothing against it. With a nod he bent down and once more kissed Iruka, pressing their lips together with thin cloth between. This time his senses were working properly and even he felt the hand movement. It was strong, this man was not comatose like the hospital suspected. He lifted his face and shot out an order. “Get Tsunade, now.” He watched as Naruto jumped and ran out of the room knowing the best medic to ever be born would soon be here. Meanwhile he decided to indulge in Iruka’s waking up.

He pushed his mask down exposing his mouth and chin and slid a hand over Iruka’s forehead. “Wake up,” he demanded before claiming the chuunin’s lips again, this time breaking the kiss off with a little lick. “I want to see your eyes again, Iruka-sensei.” Kakashi smoothed his mouth over the still cheek until it reached the jawline where he proceeded to nibble lightly. Both of Iruka’s hands shook and his fingers curled into the sheets they lay against. “You were so strong in my dungeon, fierce and full of passion.”

“I’m waiting for you,” Kakashi whispered into his ear just before nipping the lobe and running his tongue along the outer edge. That movement earned him a shoulder twitch. The copy-nin smiled and moved to claim Iruka’s mouth in another kiss, longer than the ones before. This time he ended it with a nibble on the lower lip and a playful lick to the tip of his nose. “Iruka,” he called to the sleeping man below him. “Wake up, Iruka. We can’t have more fun if you’re sleeping. I can’t see your eyes watching me as I touch you.”

Once more he dropped his lips to kiss him, moving a hand to caress Iruka’s lower jaw and slowly open his mouth. Kakashi smiled into the kiss as he felt muscles moving on their own as the chuunin responded with only a bit of prompting. Soon their tongues were moving against each other. Kakashi’s was flicking in and out tasting the mint paste they had used to clean Iruka’s teeth with earlier and reveling in the feel of the man’s own tongue working for a small taste of him.

Kakashi almost heard the snap of consciousness, but definitely felt it as a hand pressed him further into the kiss and he allowed Iruka to take control as the chuunin plundered his mouth the same way he’d just done. They fought back and forth lazily through their kisses, both enjoying the action too much to get aggressive. It wasn’t until Kakashi actually heard a sound come from Iruka’s throat that he raised himself up to look at him again.

The chuunin’s eyes were closed, but slowly fought to open as the kiss ended. “Iruka, it’s time to stop sleeping,” Kakashi reminded him as the sleep heavy lids seemed to be winning the battle. “I’m waiting right here for you, and so was Naruto.” He leaned down and ran the tip of his tongue across Iruka’s long scar. “There’s a lot that I want to do to you, Iruka, but you have to wake up first.” The chuunin’s mouth twitched into a slight smile making Kakashi laugh. The hand still holding onto his head tried to press him downward again, Kakashi didn’t bother fighting it. He only lifted his head again breaking their connection when the sound of heel clicks in the hallway prompted him to raise and recover his mouth with his mask before Tsunade barged into the room covered in a thin night robe.

“Brat,” she cried out running to the bed but watching Iruka. “Report.”

Kakashi stood his ground and grabbed Iruka’s hand. “I came in to thank him and he responded. Naruto went to get you.”

Her sharp eyes glanced at their hands watching Iruka’s fingers move to twine with Kakashi’s. “Naruto said you kissed him.”

“Just a small one, a thank you. He’s responding more now.” Kakashi shrugged and began running his own fingers over Iruka’s hand. The chuunin still hadn’t opened his eyes, but small muscle twitches could be seen throughout his body.

The still open door to Iruka’s room was suddenly crowded with shapes as Shizune, Naruto and Jiraiya ran in. Kakashi stared in near surprise at the old pervert as he smartly flipped the light switch and found a seat far away from the patient. Naruto ran right up to the foot of the bed and watched silently as Tsunade ran another diagnostic on Iruka who continued to move slightly. Shizune stood nearby and waited for orders.

The Hokage spoke softly to herself as she ran glowing hands up and down Iruka’s sheet covered body. She came back to his forehead and sighed as she watched his lids continue to flutter. “It’s got to be a combination of everything all at once, Shizune,” she spoke to her apprentice without regard to the other listeners. “Obviously he’s experiencing a reaction to the stimulant at a level of severity that his fatigued body must answer to even at this point. It tells me that the aphrodisiac drugs he took are still active, but he shows no signs of the extreme physical arousal he should be showing after the stimulation has begun. We’ve been looking at this from the wrong direction. His comatose state could be caused more by the drugs than the jutsu.”

With a nod Shizune flipped through Iruka’s chart which she had grabbed at the door. “We did note the possibility of a non-friendly reaction between the drugs and the memory-block jutsu should certain things happen. It’s altogether possible he experienced one of the few jutsus or drugs we know would work against it or maybe something we don’t. There’s no telling what Kabuto used on him that may have started the mental shut-down.” The dark haired medi-nin looked at Kakashi. “Do you have anything further to report on Kabuto’s abilities?”

Kakashi shook his head negatively. “When I left he wasn’t working on anything new, but Iruka also didn’t show any signs of having had the mind wipe performed on him. He was fully aware of what was going on.”

Tsunade stole the chart from Shizune and flipped through to the earlier pages describing everything they had done to the chuunin to prepare him for his mission. She paused and stared harshly at Kakashi. “Did Iruka achieve orgasm while you had him at Sound?”

Again the copy-nin simply shook his head. “He did not.”

She swore and ran her fingers down the long list of ingredients. “That’s the missing information then. I think that must be what happened to cause the shut down. The drugs can overload the system of the subject if he or she is unable to come to sexual completion. That overload would have a high probability to affect him mentally, and prematurely start our memory wipe jutsu that was only supposed to come into effect should he have experienced an enemy’s mental attack. It’s possible that he’s now in a progressive semi-coma due to the fact that his brain has been shutting itself down as it slowly protects and summarily destroys itself from a perceived attack caused by the stimulation drugs. It’s a preservation device to protect him and Konoha, and now it’s trying to kill him.”

“The jutsu should no longer be active,” Shizune reminded her softly.

Tsunade looked over to Jiraiya. “You saw that seal they used to activate the jutsu. What sort of a time limit did you read on it?”

The Toad Sannin was silent as he rubbed his chin. “The notations for a temporary jutsu were evident, but I would have to see the design again to know how long it would last.”

Tsunade walked back over to Iruka and slid the sheet back to expose his bare chest. She placed a green glowing hand above his skin and waited until dark symbols began painting themselves on him. She swore and pulled her hand away. “They’re supposed to be fading away by now, or completely gone.”

Jiraiya became a fourth person at the bedside with a quick movement as he began perusing the symbols. “How long did you want this to last?”

“Five days at the most.”

“Hmmm…” Jiraiya made all sorts of thoughtful noises as he continued to peer at the seal on Iruka’s chest until he nodded. “That is not so temporary of a seal. There’s an extra curl here and here,” he pointed. “These are keeping it active for a much longer time, maybe a month. I can see where they’ve already begun wearing away, though. That seal is definitely active.”

Shizune gasped from behind them all. “That means it’s eating his memories and has been for at least 48 hours or more.”

“It’s alright,” Tsunade calmed her. “I know how to stop it, and it will be a good bit easier than you think.” She stepped over to her apprentice and grinned. “All we have to do is stop the drugs from interacting with his mind and making it think it’s under attack.” Everyone stared blankly at her. Tsunade sighed and put a hand to her forehead.

“Shizune, go around to the nurse’s stations and find someone who’s willing to give Iruka a handjob. That should start sending everything back to normal.”