Chapter 6
Day One - Early Afternoon
"You can take a seat," Kakashi said, motioning in the direction of the chair by his desk.
Iruka kicked off his sandals, set them straight by the door, and silently went over to the chair. Kakashi didn't even realize he had stepped away until the chair was pulled out and he heard the whisper of fabric as Iruka sat down.
Wait. Iruka could move that silently, barefoot, over a wooden floor? Kakashi wondered inanely. But he'd been so... audible in his own apartment. Was that an affected way of walking, consciously done for Kakashi's benefit?
Kakashi left his shoes on and stayed where he stood. He felt a little safer here, by the door, where he knew where he was in relation to everything else in his apartment. He left his hands loose by his sides, untucked from his pockets, so he could fight if necessary.
It wouldn't be a pretty fight, he guessed.
"I mentioned before that I read a lot of theoretical stuff about seals and barriers," Iruka began slowly. "That's true. But I'm, ah... how do I put this?"
He hesitated for a moment.
"I'm the one who designed the current ANBU-standard seals and barriers for personal use," he finally said helplessly.
"You what?" Kakashi demanded.
"Yeah, when they got switched out for the new ones... I don't know, six or seven years ago, I guess?" Iruka said timidly.
"You're lying," Kakashi said instantly. "How old were you? Fifteen? Sixteen?"
"I was seventeen, I think," Iruka said. Kakashi could hear that his face was turned down, his voice somber. "Or thereabouts, anyway. Your wards are out of date, by the way. There are new ones that are more secure, now."
"I would have assumed," Kakashi said shortly, making a mental note to talk to Tenzō about getting his hands on the newest batch. Not that he was about to tell Iruka that. "You broke through them in under five seconds."
"Like I said," Iruka replied quietly, "I designed them. I know all the shortcuts to taking them apart. Well, I had to learn them over years of working with them, so I guess that's natural. See, every seal or barrier has a weak point. If you can find it, you can take them apart relatively easily. Like pulling the correct thread to unravel a sweater."
"That seems like a security oversight," Kakashi said, appalled.
"Of course I put safeguards into the ANBU ones," Iruka said, bristlingly slightly. "The weak points of each are protected by other seals in the set. That's why it's a set. I'd be shocked if anyone else could break through them in less than an hour, unless they were a seals expert, too." His voice had gone a little haughty at that. Kakashi didn't say that he could pick them in 42 minutes. Faster, if he knew the chakra of the owner. Of course, apparently, his seals were out of date, so who knew about the new ones.
"So you're a seals expert, then?" Kakashi needled.
"Obviously," Iruka retorted. "Or did you miss the part where I design the seals for ANBU?"
"Prove it," Kakashi said.
"I... Okay. Um. Do you have a pen and paper?" Iruka asked. "Just scratch paper is fine."
Kakashi motioned toward the desk. "In the desk drawer."
He heard the filing drawer pulled out. Inside of it was an inner drawer carrying pencils, pens, and paper.
He heard the shifting of a sheet of paper on the desk and the click of a pen being set down, and the drawer being closed.
The pen scratched on the paper for a few minutes. Kakashi waited.
Then, the drawer came out again, the pen was put away, and the drawer closed again.
"Here. This won't hurt you, but it will feel weird," Iruka said, standing and taking two steps toward Kakashi. Kakashi resisted the urge to flinch. "It will just hold you still. It wears off in fifteen seconds. Is that okay?"
Kakashi definitely didn't scoff, but he wanted to. There were some seals, combined with barriers, that could do something similar, but nothing that could be made so fast, even by an expert. And even those could be broken.
"Of course," was all he said.
"I want you to know where I am. That you're safe. Is it okay if you take my hand?" Iruka asked hesitantly.
Kakashi put out his other hand, found Iruka's fingers, and loosely closed his hand around the same fingers. It made him feel better, to know that Iruka couldn't make hand signs while the seal was doing whatever it would be doing. Of course, that had been Iruka's intent in offering his hand.
Finally, Iruka held out the sheet of paper. Kakashi's fingers closed on the sheet of paper, and he froze.
It wasn't that he wanted to freeze, per se. Little spiderwebs crawled down his skin lightning fast, holding him fast. Panic set in, spiking his heart rate as he tried to fight the cobweb bindings holding him. He made a small noise, because he couldn't even open his jaw enough to speak.
Iruka's free hand, the one not trapped in Kakashi's grasp, lightly landed on the back of Kakashi's hand. His fingers were trembling, but he made no attempt to make any hand seals of any kind.
Two. Three, Kakashi counted silently, still trying to fight off the seal to no avail as his muscles flexed against unmoving bonds.
"It's okay," Iruka said softly, soothingly. "It'll wear off in twelve seconds. Eleven. Breathe, Kakashi-san. I'm a friend. I promise you, I would never harm you." Not could not; would not. Because, Kakashi realized, Iruka was perfectly capable of ripping his way through even the best of ANBU with seals like these, at least, as long as their chakra was bound. Being able to do damage wasn't a matter of being the best, after all. Kakashi knew that well. It was a matter of being able to use one's resources to a greater potential than one's opponent.
Kakashi realized he was hyperventilating through his nose.
"It's okay," Iruka said gently again. "Seven more seconds. It's okay, Kakashi-san. Breathe."
They were the longest five seconds of Kakashi's life.
He jerked free, stumbling back and falling against his door, away from the source of his reactive terror. He felt like a cornered wild animal, and everything in him screamed, Flee! Flee! Flee! He was too vulnerable without his sight, too vulnerable without a shred of chakra at his command, to fight back if this shinobi attacked.
But then he heard Iruka step away and sink heavily back down into the desk chair with a long sigh.
Kakashi realized his fist had closed around the now-inactive seal, and it took him a moment to realize that it was really written on one of his pieces of scratch paper. The holes where he'd ripped it from a spiral-bound notebook ran raggedly around one edge. It wasn't even chakra paper, just ordinary lined paper! He resisted the urge to laugh hysterically.
"You're a seals master," Kakashi finally said falteringly.
"Expert," Iruka corrected. "I'm not a true master, nor will I ever be. I'm not that good. But I'm one of the best Konoha has on hand, right now. Jiraiya-sama is better than me, certainly."
"I... see," Kakashi said, feeling faint. "And what was that seal you wrote on here?"
"One of my own design," Iruka said quietly. "I'll ask you to burn that, though I imagine you'll want to take a look at it first. It's not one I've shared with anyone else. It has the potential to be used for too much wrong in the world."
"Then why design it at all?" Kakashi demanded. But he recognized Iruka's implicit admission of trust in Kakashi. He had shown Kakashi a private work as a shinobi, one he didn't intend to use even for the benefit of Konoha because of its dangerous potential. And yet, he was allowing Kakashi to keep it, to look it over once his sight – and his Sharingan – were restored.
"Because I was young and stupid, and I wanted to see if I could," Iruka said simply. "I only realized after I'd trapped myself for an hour that I shouldn't have. Worst muscle cramps of my life."
"Heh." Kakashi found himself reluctantly amused at Iruka's deadpan words.
"I was scheduled to take the jōnin exam when you and I were sent on that mission, you know," Iruka said softly. Iruka was talking to give Kakashi a chance to collect himself with what little remained of his dignity, he realized. "I was supposed to become a jōnin, and then I was going to go on a fellowship to Kirigakure to study seals there, as part of an exchange program for peace. That's what Sandaime wanted for me. I ended up as a teacher of pre-genin, instead. Funny. Life works out that way, sometimes, I guess."
"He thought you would pass the jōnin exam?" Kakashi kept his voice carefully neutral as he folded the seal Iruka had drawn on the lined paper. He slipped it into his pocket for later study.
"I already had," Iruka said, sounding surprised. "In all but name, anyway. The jōnin exam was going to be nothing more than a show. I never formally became a jōnin, though. And then, when I was studying to become an Academy instructor, I had to miss the jōnin exam to take an exam through the Academy. I never ended up taking the official jōnin exam, so I never actually became a jōnin."
"I see," Kakashi said blandly. Taking the exam before the official exam was relatively commonplace, but everything else Iruka said was a surprise. What a fascinating turn of events. He never would have guessed that Iruka had been about to become a jōnin, particularly given his... somewhat questionable decision-making during their one and only mission together.
"I doubt I would pass anymore," Iruka admitted. "I could become a tokubetsu jōnin, obviously, but...." There was a shifting of fabric that Kakashi guessed was a shrug. "I'm sorry."
"For what, sensei?" Kakashi drawled.
"I probably should have mentioned all of that before I agreed to help you," Iruka said, his voice low. "I can only imagine it's disconcerting to learn when you're...." He sighed again.
"Somewhat," Kakashi acknowledged. He felt considerably less on edge than he had five minutes ago, though. Realizing the extent of Iruka's skill actually made him feel better, in some ways. After all, should someone attack them, he now knew that Iruka could better defend Kakashi than Kakashi had earlier realized. He was a surprisingly good choice for Kakashi to have stayed with whilst blind. "Though it explains why Tsunade-sama was willing to let me stay with you. I should have realized. How many people know all this about you?"
Iruka chuckled humorlessly. "Nobody's ever accused me of any of it to my face. Ibiki-sensei knows, of course, as does the ANBU commander. Tsunade-sama and Shizune-san. Um. I think Shikamaru and his father have probably guessed. So has Asuma-san, probably. Jiraiya-sama. I don't know if anybody else knows."
"Ibiki-san isn't a seals expert," Kakashi said, puzzled.
"Oh, no, he was my jōnin-sensei when I was a genin," Iruka said with a small smile lingering in his words. "If he hadn't been, I doubt anyone would have ever discovered my work with seals and barriers. I certainly wouldn't have had any ties to ANBU without him."
"I see."
Kakashi strode over to his bed and knelt on it, feeling along the shelf beside the bed for the scrolls containing his uniforms and other necessities. He made a mental note to make labels he could feel, once he got his sight back. He couldn't tell the difference between any of the scrolls without his sight.
"May I ask for your help?" he asked, climbing off the bed and moving aside until his arm pressed against another bookshelf. "I need one of the green scrolls with 'Uniform' written on them, and the toiletries scroll."
"Any pyjamas?" Iruka asked, stepping over and kneeling on the bed to retrieve the requested scrolls.
"Oh, there should be a scroll next to the toiletries," Kakashi said. "Could you please also grab a mask scroll?"
Iruka took down the scrolls and passed them to Kakashi, who placed them in his flak jacket pockets.
"Anything else?" Iruka asked, getting off the bed once more.
"I probably need to water Ukki-kun," Kakashi mused. "The nearest tap is down the hall."
He heard a stifled laugh, presumably at the name of the plant. "Just lead the way," Iruka said.
"I'm afraid you'll need to lead the way, sensei," Kakashi replied, amused. "But I can tell you how to get there."
"Right," Iruka said embarrassedly.
Kakashi grabbed a mug, and they put their sandals on. He put a hand out for Iruka's again, and Iruka quietly slipped his fingers against Kakashi's gloved palms.
A small part of him wanted to jerk away again, to put distance between himself and this unknown entity. But a larger part of him remembered how Iruka had held him with soothing words after Kakashi had woken from his nightmare last night, and his fingers tightened just a little around Iruka's.
"Thank you," he said quietly as they went down the hallway of the apartment building. "For telling me all of that."
"Of course," Iruka said, his voice just as soft, something sorrowful in it. "I suppose all shinobi have secrets, don't we?"
"You might even say that's our job," Kakashi joked lightly.
"I'm smiling, just so you know," Iruka said, and indeed, there was a small smile in his voice. "You're funny. I never knew that before."
"I'm not funny," Kakashi protested. "I'm intimidating. Rawr."
Iruka laughed quietly, and his laughter made a small, secret part of Kakashi melt a little.
"Why haven't you told anyone?" Kakashi asked. They reached the floor's kitchen, where Kakashi went to the tap to fill his mug with water for his plant.
"People would see me differently," Iruka said, almost too quietly to hear. "Some people would see someone more powerful than I am. Some people would think I'm boasting. I think people would be afraid of me, or they would try to use me."
"I could see that," Kakashi admitted. "I don't think you're wrong." He shut off the tap, and Iruka took the mug as they made their way back to Kakashi's apartment.
"I like being a teacher, and I don't mind being a chūnin," Iruka confessed. "I like staying at home and working with kids. I don't belong out on missions. I don't know if you remember the mission you and I went on. You were the squad leader, and I–"
"Shouldn't have been placed in that situation by me," Kakashi broke in smoothly. "Yes, I remember."
"I should have been able to defend myself," Iruka said curtly. "There are plenty of children who are shinobi. I have no business being out on the field if I can't fight one of them."
"I can't say I disagree about that," Kakashi said slowly, "but I shouldn't have put you in the situation where you had to."
"You had no way of knowing I would freeze up," Iruka said quietly. "And I shouldn't have. It really shouldn't have been an issue, especially since I was practically a jōnin at the time. No, you weren't at fault, Kakashi-san. You really weren't."
Kakashi stopped for Iruka to open the wards on the apartment door. They fell away in an instant, leaving Kakashi's skin prickling once more.
Iruka stepped out of his sandals and, a moment later, Kakashi heard water hitting soil.
"Anything else you need?" Iruka asked.
"No. You can just put the mug on this shelf," Kakashi said, motioning at the shelf where a coaster stood. "If there's water left, that's fine."
"Okay," Iruka said. "Maybe we can pick up a late lunch and eat at my place?" he asked from the floor, where he was putting his sandals back on.
"I was hoping to pay for some groceries," Kakashi said slowly.
"Oh, I... don't really cook," Iruka admitted with a shy chuckle as he stood. "I tend to do damage to my kitchen... and to myself, when I try."
"You cooked breakfast," Kakashi pointed out, unsurprised by Iruka's admission. He let them back out of his apartment, and the wards snapped back to life before he could so much as sniff.
"Hardly," Iruka said, sliding his fingers around Kakashi's wrist once more to help him out of the building. "I appreciate your saying so, but I know my cooking is just on the right side of edible." He chuckled ruefully.
"Well, let me buy lunch, then," Kakashi insisted.
"Th– thank you, Kakashi-san," Iruka said shyly. "You really don't need to, though."
"I'd like to. You've put aside your entire schedule to help me. It's the very least I can do."
"Are you really sure?" Iruka asked hesitantly. "I really don't mind."
"Just let me. Please." Kakashi smiled over his mask. "Or I'll be forced to drop off bento lunches for you at the Academy until I feel I've made up for it."
Iruka coughed on a brief laugh. "Well, thank you, Kakashi-san. What would you like to eat?"
"What would you like?" Kakashi asked. "I'll eat most anything, though I have to admit that something with vegetables is appealing to me right at this moment."
"I know a place with good salads," Iruka said. "How does that sound?"
"Perfect," Kakashi said with a smile.