A Flash of Pink

Kakashi could tell that they were being watched, he could smell the other men on the wind like the smell of freshly mown grass. Team Iruka had been moving around the forest surrounding Konoha for the past two weeks training and ‘familiarising’ themselves with the terrain. The men had been following them for the past 3 days, obviously waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.



Iruka knew, and he was reasonably sure that Sakura had picked up on his own nervousness Naruto, however, was living in blissful ignorance. There was the saying that ignorance was bliss and in this situation Kakashi could certainly believe it. Naruto was only focused on improving and enjoying his current form and he certainly appeared to be enjoying it wholeheartedly.



Iruka had debated with Kakashi as to wether or not they should come up with a plan but in the end they had decided that a genuinely surprised reaction would only occur if they were genuinely surprised. They also had no way of knowing how the enemy would attack or even if they would attack, they might try stealth. Iruka also seemed to be worried that the Iwa-nins would be jounin rank and would simply kill him to prevent any rescue attempt.



Thinking about Iruka being killed caused a strange tightening in Kakashi’s chest. He wasn’t sure what was causing it but he wished it would just stop as it was highly distracting. A lot of things relating to Iruka were highly distracting recently, like the way that he stood with his feet slightly apart and his hands on his hips, the way that his shirt tightened across his shoulders when he reached down to pick something up, the way that he praised Kakashi’s cooking efforts.



Wrenching himself back to the present Kakashi barely ducked the kick aimed for his head by Sakura who had noticed his distraction. They were involved in a 3-sided spar with Iruka looking on and occasionally commenting on or correcting their actions. His technique in this body was improving in leaps and bounds; soon he would be able to take on Sakura by himself without any help from Naruto.



The sound of loud singing caused all four Konoha ninja to immediately form a defensive pattern facing outwards. Kakashi could feel Iruka pushing outwards with his chakra trying to sense what was out there.



“It’s only a drunken civilian”, Iruka commented dryly. Sakura made an affirmative noise and Kakashi glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was suddenly looking nervous and Kakashi smiled gently, this was going to be the beginning of their real mission. Naruto was still blissfully ignorant, questioning Iruka about the words in the song, which were highly inappropriate for children, and making the teacher blush.



With a curse and a thump the drunken civilian bounced, face-first, off a tree and landed on his back in their clearing. After several attempts at regaining his feet failed he obviously decided that sitting was much better. Peering short-sightedly at the small group of ninja poised in front of him he suddenly grinned sloppily and attempted to introduce himself.



According to his much slurred biography his name was Kyo and he was supposed to deliver a message to man in the next village but he had gotten lost and say where they ninja? He patted his pockets and withdrew a very empty-looking wallet which when opened showed that it was indeed empty. The man, Kyo, grunted in annoyance and then announced in a voice that he probably thought was grandiose that if they could lead him to the village then the man that he was delivering the message to would reward them.



Kakashi hear Iruka sigh and risked a quick glance at his sensei’s face. Iruka’s eyes were grim and his mouth was drawn into a tight line of disapproval. Despite this however he walked forward and smiled down at the man on the ground.



“Of course Kyo-sama” he murmured softly before turning to the three seeming-genin and telling them not to slack off and that he would be back shortly after he had delivered Kyo to the village. Kakashi could almost taste the smirks on the faces of the men watching them.



“Kashi-kun, you’re leader until I get back.” He announced as he slung the drunken man onto his back and disappeared into the bushes.



Kakashi smirked before announcing that if Iruka-sensei thought that they would continue to fight then he was sorely mistaken and did the others want to go swimming? Swimming would be a good option, it would leave them without weapons so there was less opportunity for violence should the Iwa-nin attempt to abduct them.



They went into their tents to change into the bikinis that Sakura had thoughtfully provided them with before moving down to the river. Kakashi had never believed that splashing in the water could be so much fun or that it could be so exhausting. They had played around for at least an hour before deciding to dry off in the sun. As they lay there dozing and talking of nothing much Kakashi felt contentment steal over him, it didn’t matter that there were procurers watching them waiting to snatch them up he wanted to stay like this forever.



Sprawled between his students on the grass with the sun warming his back Kakashi yawned, prompting his students to follow suit, his eyelid lowered and he took a deep breath. The smell of orchids, thick and cloying in his nostrils, made it difficult to keep his eyes open. With another deep breath his eyelids drifted down and he was soon dreaming of summer days in the sun.



*********



Iruka sighed to himself as rushed back from the village that he had escorted Kyo to. As he had suspected the man to whom he had delivered Kyo had not had any money either and the message had merely been an invitation to a drinking session the following week when their wives were going to be away.



Wether this had been organised by the nin that had been stalking them or was purely happenstance Iruka would probably never know. He had no intention of torturing any answers, other than those pertaining to either lost girls or missing cohorts, out of said nin. On reflection it could have been much worse though, the nin might have attacked and left him wounded – it was always so much more difficult to infiltrate somewhere when you were leaking blood everywhere.



When he reached the campsite where he had left the ‘girls’ he smiled, the camp was untouched. Further investigation revealed that the ‘girls’ had gone swimming; probably on Kakashi’s urging to tempt the procurers with a minimum of violence. The ground around the stream showed clearly where the three had been sunning themselves and multiple slight marks that would indicate a group of four had landed and carried the three youngsters off.



The lingering aroma of orchids let Iruka know how the three had been overpowered with no resistance. It was a popular grass method to abduct civilians and low-ranking ninja. A tiny wind jutsu that was all but undetectable below jounin rank would carry the distillation straight to the victim’s nostrils. If his ‘girls’ had been sunbaking then it was understandable that they would be sleepy anyway. He wondered vaguely if Kakashi had noticed anything.



After using his chakra to determine that there was no-one in his immediate vicinity Iruka calmly strolled back to their campsite to begin packing it all up. He was glad that they had not brought too much stuff as he would be able to carry all of this by himself and he hated leaving things behind. Fully loaded up he made his way back to the stream to pick up the trail and begin his slow pursuit.



The enemy ninja weren’t moving very quickly, they probably weren’t really worried about him following them. Most chuunin would not have been able to follow the trail as quickly as he could but he had been receiving training from Kakashi for the last few years and had very few problems. Suddenly he was glad that the silver haired man had pressured him into the training.



It occurred to Iruka suddenly that this might have been the reason that Tsunade had assigned him to this mission in the first place. Iruka had made no secret of the fact that Kakashi had been giving him extra training and that he had been spending more time around the powerful man. On several occasions their training sessions had even had an audience although Iruka had never noticed the Hokage amongst the watchers.



The chase went on for several excruciating days; Iruka had to be very careful about not catching up, if it came to a fight he would most definitely lose. In the days of trailing he had discerned that there were in fact six ninja ahead of him, three were burdened with his students the other three were obviously for offence and defence. He couldn’t tell what rank they were but he guessed that they were probably mostly chuunin with a jounin or two leading them.



He had plenty of time for reflection in his travelling, having Kakashi taken away, even though he knew that it was coming, was like having a bleeding wound in his heart. He missed the other man terribly. Although he was very appreciative of the female form he was currently inhabiting Iruka found that he much preferred the original. Catching himself out of his daydream moments before crashing face-first into a tree Iruka scolded himself for daydreaming on a mission and swore to keep his mind out of gutter.



The closer that they came to their destination the cleverer the traps the enemy nin left behind became. Iruka had become quite good at spotting them, he’d only set off a couple of the early traps before he’d become wise to their methods. It appeared that they hadn’t faced much resistance in the past, previously they had probably only procured civilians who had been unable to fight back effectively. Iruka was rather looking forward to teaching them the error of their ways.



Their destination was a chateau set back into the trees overlooking an idyllic valley, it was very obviously the country retreat for a noble. Probably the very noble who had employed the missing nin to procure pretty children for him. It was a very pretty-looking building with big glass windows facing out over the valley for the spectacular views. Security-wise there were no guard towers and there was only a single narrow wall, too narrow to be walked on, surrounding the gardens. The man was either extremely confident or extremely stupid.



Iruka very carefully investigated the entire area surrounding the chateau, even extending his search down into the valley before venturing closer to the building. He was not particularly worried that the ‘girls’ would be attacked, from what he had gathered from his talks with Kakashi, the noble would want them to be bathed and dressed prettily before he even saw them. The sight and smell of the travel-weary would probably be too much for such delicate sensibilities.



Iruka had snorted in disbelief at Kakashi’s determination, how could someone who used children for sexual gratification possible be upset by the smell of sweat and dust? Kakashi had given him a strange look and mumbled something about purity that Iruka hadn’t understood. Then he had begun to explain and Iruka’s blood had run cold.



It was the illusion that mattered, the imagined give and take. This man probably believed that his mistreatment was a transaction. Food, clothing, shelter and of course bathing facilities against sexual gratification, if he didn’t ‘see’ them come in all grubby and grimy he could pretend that they were there of their own free will. It wouldn’t stop him if they objected to their new status; he would make himself believe that they were trying to take advantage of him.



Iruka was definitely of the opinion that the sooner this man was removed from life the better it would be for everyone else. He could not screw this up. He had to get inside without being detected, meet up with his students who had hopefully found out about the other girls and then kill everyone in the place who was complicit. Iruka wasn’t feeling particularly generous towards the servants either, by staying they were implying acceptance of their lord’s behaviour.



The chateau had been built with commanding views of the valley and security at the front was very tight, Iruka had discovered however that around the back, at the servant’s quarters, the security was very lax. There were lots of small buildings and shadows to hide in and only one lonely-looking guard overlooking it. Iruka couldn’t have hoped for anything better. He decided that he would wait until the following night to attempt sneaking in. He wanted to observe this area for a full night at least to see what happened on a regular night.



24 hours later Iruka was still lying on his tree branch, his bladder was screaming at him but he was manfully ignoring it. Nothing spectacular had occurred the previous night or in the following day. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his students and had been unable to detect any of the servants speaking about them. He also hadn’t been able to see into the kitchens so he was unsure as to the total number of people inside the chateau.



Taking a deep breath he slithered to the ground and began to move on silent feet towards the chateau and Kakashi.



*********



The Iwa-nin smiled as his fellows carefully deposited their burdens upon the bed, bowed and took their leave. He ran gentle fingers over his captives, ostensibly feeling for contusions that might have been collected during their travels. This was the last time that he would be able to feel them up like this, they belonged to his lord now, but oh how he would miss this. The silver-haired one was his favourite ever since he had spied her touching herself beside the river. He ran his fingers over her breasts watching the nipples stand up in appreciation.



Sighing to himself about self-control he took one last long look and took his leave to report to his master.