Escort

IV

Tsunade decided not to tell Kakashi that he was over-reacting. The silver haired jounin was absolutely convinced that Iruka had been kidnapped and he was determined to find him and destroy his kidnapper. No matter how many times she explained that Iruka was perfectly safe, Kakashi wouldn’t buy it. Finally, she threw up her hands in frustration.

“Hatake Kakashi! Calm yourself!”

The jounin froze in mid-sentence and though one really couldn’t tell because of that blasted mask, his mouth was hanging open. Tsunade rubbed her skull to ward off her headache and sighed.

“Iruka’s fine. He’s just doing a mission for me. He’ll be back when it’s complete.”

“He’s only a chuunin, Tsunade-sama.” Kakashi replied.

“He’s one of the best. I believe in him. Now, get out, Hatake. And don’t you dare go after him.”

Kakashi bowed out, glaring daggers at the Hokage’s office. She sent Iruka on a mission. During the school year, no less! Kakashi just didn’t agree with it. Iruka needed to be here, where Kakashi could watch him. He just had to be. Kakashi spent the rest of his morning invading Iruka’s apartment for clues to his whereabouts. He wasn’t having any luck, but he found a few photographs of Iruka and Naruto he just had to have. Would Iruka notice then? Probably. The jounin decided to leave the pictures where they were and concentrate on finding the chuunin. In the end, he summoned up one of his nin-dogs to find Iruka’s scent. Kakashi made sure he didn’t summon Pakkun because the little dog would just talk sense to him.

Kakashi shook his head and followed the nin-dog out of the village, concentrating on finding Iruka. Iruka couldn’t function outside a classroom. Well, that wasn’t true, not exactly, considering before the Chuunin exams he’d tested Team Seven. But then, he’d been tricking twelve-year old kids, not going up against potential danger that could mean the end of his life. Kakashi needed to be there to protect him because Iruka couldn’t protect himself. Well, he could, but that wasn’t the point. Iruka needed to be protected because he was a chuunin. Kakashi couldn’t – wouldn’t – trust Iruka to watch his back in a fight because Kakashi’s skills far outweighed Iruka’s and he would have to watch Iruka instead of concentrating on the fight at hand. So he had to find Iruka and bring him back to Konoha, mission or no mission, just so he could keep an eye on him. Iruka was suited to protecting children. After all, Iruka couldn’t even protect himself against Mizuki.

Kakashi winced. Iruka had done his best and had gotten wounded because of it. Kakashi had seen the scar that was just a little to the right of the chuunin’s spine. A little closer and Iruka would’ve been lucky to become a paraplegic. So that made Kakashi’s resolve to find Iruka all the more hardened and he picked up his pace. He had to find Iruka before something bad happened. So he ran through the night, following his little nin-dog until the poor thing needed to rest. Since Kakashi had the general direction now, he just kept running. He hadn’t even bothered to do some reconnaissance in Tsunade’s office before he left, which he was kicking himself for now. He should’ve at least figured out where exactly Iruka was going. A week of hard travel planted him in a small port town and he took a few hours to rest and change his appearance and make up some sort of story about looking for work. Off came the jounin’s vest, the black shirt and pants and sandals, the mask and the hitai-ate though he debated about the mask for a long time, and changed into something less conspicuous. An eye-patch finished the ensemble, covering the Sharingan. He was set, except for his story about needing a job, where he had come from, that whole thing. Well, he could think about it on the ferry, on the way over to Iiga. He could find some information there, he was sure. If Iruka had been around that city, then someone would know him, or at least, his look.

Not many could mistake Iruka for someone else, anyway. If the scar wasn’t enough, then the way his eyes were. Those pretty orbs were too innocent despite his life as a ninja. Iruka just didn’t have enough heart to kill anyone and that showed. Oh, he could fight, defend himself. Kakashi knew that first hand and rubbed his jaw in memory. Iruka had a mean right hook. Kakashi could’ve dodged it, but he hadn’t been expecting it, not from Iruka. He’d always seen Iruka as one to yell and vent his anger verbally, not physically. Iruka yelled all the time at his students, after all. He’d known Iruka had a temper; he’d seen it on more than one occasion. Still, he’d never expected it to be turned on him, at least, physically. He could handle the yelling. That’s just how Iruka was. He would yell, be vocal about his anger, work it out through pacing, screaming, pointing, yelling. Rarely did he actually lash out in his anger because Iruka never did like violence. Some way of thinking for a ninja, huh? Still, it was something Kakashi admired Iruka for, and that made him want to protect Iruka’s way of thinking. He wanted to give Iruka what he wanted, to protect him from those who would hurt him.

That was all Kakashi wanted.

It never occurred to him that in protecting Iruka he was actually hurting him. One could equate the situation to taking care of an injured bird. You kept the creature in a cage and even though the bird was healed and ready to fly, you kept it day after day after day until finally the bird died in its cage and you never really knew why.

Kakashi fell into step amongst several other rough looking men and the rest of the crowd that came back and forth across the small river to the city on the other side. Once on the ferry, he moved apart from the crowd to lean against the rail and watch the water’s wake over the sides of the ship as they steamed through the choppy waters. He would find Iruka and he would bring him home. Because Konoha was where Iruka belonged, not out doing some mission that someone more… qualified… could do.