Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ What He Wants ❯ Part 11 ( Chapter 11 )

Part 11

 

 

When Ibiki starts going over the scrolls and information he's put together from the photographs Iruka took for him, Iruka sits in rapt attention. He's determined to memorize everything that has been done to him, from words to hand seals to variations on Sharingan manipulation.

 

He does alright, for the first hour and a half.

 

Now it is approaching the two hour mark, and his eyes are starting to glaze over. As a teacher, he's used to giving and hearing lectures, but most aren't this long and none are anywhere near this complicated. This is like attending a seminar in advanced quantum chakra theory combined with neurosurgery. Iruka knows he's a very intelligent man, but he has to admit that most of this is going over his head.

 

Which is worrying, because this isn't theoretical. This has all been practically applied to his brain.

 

“May I ask a question?” bursts out of Iruka's lips, before he has even considered speaking.

 

All eyes turn to him, and his face burns. He's so mortified at having just interrupted Morino Ibiki that he almost forgets the question that's been drifting through his mind, among the particulars of memory transition without incurring agnosia and regression through chakra-controlled dedifferentiation.

 

“Yes, Umino-san?” Ibiki doesn't betray any annoyance. Iruka hopes that's a good thing.

 

“There are amnesia jutsu and other amnesia procedures that are a hell of a lot simpler than all this,” Iruka manages. “I can't even tell how many jutsu you have going on at once, here. And if I'm not mistaken, there's a lot of redundancy. Why would—“ It suddenly occurs to Iruka that he's actually talking to Kakashi, not Ibiki, and he almost freezes up. “Why,” he presses on, lowering his eyes to the table and refusing to look over at the eye he can feel boring into his head, “would you choose to go through all this instead? I can see how you would have a greater degree of control with some of the memory transition, but there's so much more that could go wrong with something so complex.” His expression hardens. “Unless you weren't worried about whether anything went wrong, and just wanted to see if you could do it.”

 

There is more silence for a moment, and Iruka is grateful that at least the focus isn't on him anymore.

 

Kakashi's deep voice resounds across the table, and Iruka's eyes close. His ears drink in the sound, bathe in it, revel in it, and he almost misses what Kakashi is saying.

 

“First of all, I wouldn't have let anything go wrong. If I'd had any doubts about that, I wouldn't have done it. Second, it's true that there are much easier jutsu, but they can be undone just as easily. The less complex ones I've found that couldn't be undone also carry significant risk of permanent damage, on par with lobotomy or retardation. They also carry other drawbacks like loss of time, loss of recognition of people or other things that should be familiar, random memory loss like you'd get with electroshock, and so on. I couldn't find one scroll or one jutsu that would serve, so I had to combine many, and then adapt the use of the Sharingan. The redundancy is mostly to keep the different techniques from reacting with each other.”

 

“Alright, fine. Let me see if I have this straight…” Iruka runs a hand down his face. He's still in academic mode, but talking to Kakashi is making him jittery. He tries not to think about it. “First, you regressed the part of my mind that makes a distinction about which sex I'm attracted to, so that I'm open to both of them.”

 

“Well…it's not exactly regression, Sensei, not in the literal sense of the word. And it's not all in your brain. But yes, that's the general idea.”

 

“You then somehow went through my memories and isolated everything involving Shiko, even just thoughts about her, and sealed them all off individually, leaving all other memories and thoughts—even ones I'd had on the same days, in the same hours—intact. Months and months of memories.”

 

He can hear Kakashi's smile in his response. “Time and space aren't as inflexible when you're using the Sharingan, especially the Mangekyou. Also, it wasn't that perfect. I had to block more than I wanted to, just because, as you've surmised, it's very difficult to isolate a memory, and even harder to isolate the memory of a thought. If I hadn't had a few days to work on the next step, you would have realized you had lost something, no matter what I did.”

 

“And the next step was putting yourself in Shiko's place in my memories, one by one.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Also, you found a way to adapt my memories so that you fit in them, since obviously you and Shiko are different, and would have reacted differently to the same things.”

 

“It's just as you say.”

 

“Then, once the memories were altered, you unlocked them. Plus you made up a few memories, like the restraining order.”

 

“Correct.”

 

“And all this time, you were trying to maintain a somewhat normal chakra level so that no one would suspect anything was going on, occasionally driving yourself to almost complete chakra exhaustion yet still making an effort to appear to be functioning normally. All the while knowing that eventually you'd be caught, because this ridiculously complicated procedure had far too many variables.”

 

There is silence. Iruka can almost hear Kakashi's eyebrow rise, can almost hear him saying, So?

 

Iruka slumps back in his chair, rubbing his temples. Wataridori has been helping with the headaches, but he can't help with ones that are brought on by incredulity. “You're a complete psychopath, you know that? What the hell was the point of all this, then? To drive me barking mad? Because if that's your plan, congratulations, it's working beautifully.”

 

“I think it's time for a break,” Tsunade interrupts, drumming her nails on the table. Iruka almost starts; for a few moments he'd forgotten there was anyone else in the room besides Kakashi.

 

“Can I answer, first?” Kakashi says.

 

Iruka hears the Hokage sigh. “I suppose. Keep it succinct.”

 

“The point of this, Iruka, is that even though we're here discussing this, and our colleagues are no doubt going to be dissecting this late into the night looking for some way to undo what I've done, it's far too late. Being caught, not being caught, documents or no documents—none of this matters. The bond between us, Sensei, can't be undone. Not by anyone.” There's a slight pause. “Not to disparage your skills, Hokage-sama, nor anyone else's here, but it's the truth.”

 

Iruka looks over at Kakashi for the first time since he set foot in the room, and sees both his eyes. It is then that he realizes something.

 

Kakashi is definitely not giving everything away. There's something very important that he's not saying, that he's covering up by inundating them all with this deluge of information. It's probably something relatively simple, too.

 

He wonders briefly if Ibiki knows this, then bites his lip to keep from laughing. Of course he does. The Hokage knows too, if that dark, wary glare she's throwing Kakashi is any indication. If they haven't managed to get the information out of him by now, it's very unlikely that anything short of prolonged torture will make him talk. And maybe not even that.

 

“I still think you just wanted a guinea pig,” Anko says. Iruka thinks it might be her way of trying to lighten the mood.

 

“Don't be jealous. I would have experimented on you first if I'd had the time,” Kakashi replies cheerfully.

 

Anko grins widely, sending chills down Iruka's spine. “You could still do it! Put yourself in Orochimaru's place, and make catty, pithy comments about all his evil obsessions. That'd make my formative years so much more fun to remember.”

 

Iruka is amazed that she can make jokes about her former sensei; he doesn't think he'd be able to, in her place.

 

“Pithy? No, no. If it's Orochimaru, I'll be positively verbose. Grandiloquent, even. Hey, come to my cell and we can get started; it's not like I've got anything better to do—”

 

“Shut up, Hatake,” Ibiki growls. “Mitarashi, you go anywhere near his cell and I'll personally tie you to a chair and make you watch civilian educational TV until you're ready to gnaw through your own neck.”

 

The gleeful look on Anko's face rapidly changes to one of awestruck horror. “You wouldn't!”

 

“You bet your dango?”

 

“Hell, no!”

 

Iruka wonders what's so horrid about civilian educational TV. He figures there must be a story behind it, but he's not sure he wants to know.

 

The Hokage stands up. “Break time. Now. And remember, nothing that has been said here leaves this room. If I find out any of this has gotten back to the elders…” She cracks her knuckles, and there's no need for her to elaborate.

 

As Kurenai, Wataridori, Anko and Shizune begin bustling out of the room, Tsunade turns to Iruka. “Do you think you've gotten all you want out of this, Iruka?” she asks, smiling. “From here on out, we're probably going to be going over this same information over and over. I don't think there'll be anything you haven't already heard about, but if there is, I'll let you know. There isn't anything else, is there, Hatake-san?” She sends a glower at Kakashi, who hasn't moved from his chair.

 

“He knows all there is to know, Hokage-sama,” Kakashi replies. It's obviously an evasion, but no one calls him on it. Now's not the time, Iruka supposes.

 

He wonders for a moment if he should be offended that the Hokage is giving him an out on the rest of the meeting, but decides that he really wouldn't be of any help anyway. The meeting was initially called to discuss what options they had available to treat Iruka, but since things are this complicated, the options can't really be chosen; they have to be made. Iruka knows he won't be able to help with that.

 

“Perhaps I'll go home and watch some educational TV,” Iruka muses with a grin.

 

“I heard that!” calls Anko from the hallway.

 

“I'll send a message right away when there are any new developments,” Tsunade says, clapping him lightly on the shoulder, and Iruka just barely keeps from slamming into the table.

 

He smiles. “Thanks, Hokage-sama.” He nods at Ibiki, and tries not to let his eyes linger on Kakashi as he stands up, though he's starving for the sight of him.

 

He turns away, feeling like he's leaving his heart—and lungs, and stomach, and intestines, and kidneys, and possibly several other vital organs as well—behind him in that room, where Kakashi sits with his schemes and his secrets.

 

Kakashi calls after him, stopping him on a dime. “Iruka—”

 

“Hatake!” Ibiki hollers angrily.

 

There is silence. Iruka imagines that must be because Kakashi has been forbidden to initiate conversation with him. Half-reluctantly, half-eagerly, he turns his head just enough to see over his shoulder, not enough to see Kakashi. “You have something to say, Kakashi-san?”

 

More silence. Just as Iruka is about to leave the room, he hears, “Don't forget what I said about us. We're together, so—”

 

Iruka has been rapidly descending out of academic mode since Tsunade dismissed them, and the reality of everything Kakashi's done has him rising into thoroughly pissed mode. He whirls on Kakashi. “Is that supposed to be threatening or comforting, Kakashi-san? Because no matter which way I look at it, all this is your brilliantly insane way of knocking me over the head with a club and dragging me off to your cave by the hair. So hearing you say our bond can't be broken is more terrifying than anything else you've said.”

 

Kakashi's Sharingan is closed; his right eye widens a little, then narrows. “Is it?”

 

“Is what?” Iruka snaps.

 

“Is it terrifying to you? The thought of being bonded with me?”

 

It isn't, of course. It damn well ought to be, but it isn't. Iruka says nothing, but it's obvious that Kakashi can read him, as the corners of his mouth turn up just slightly.

 

Turning on his heel, Iruka stomps out of the room, and tries not to wonder why Kakashi looked more relieved than smug.

 

***

 

Iruka can't stop pacing. He got home a few hours ago, cleaned his entire apartment—not terribly messy to begin with—and tried to relax. But the more he thinks about what Kakashi's done, the more he can't believe he was able to discuss it so dispassionately this morning.

 

Kakashi, a man for whom he thought he felt things he can't remember feeling for anyone, has plundered his mind. Raped it. Stolen from it, replaced Iruka like a changeling. And even in the face of full—or mostly full—disclosure, Kakashi remains confident that Iruka will stay by his side. Will want to.

 

He's right, for now, though Iruka hates to admit it.

 

Iruka flops down on his couch and huffs through gritted teeth. Maybe it would be best, whether or not Tsunade can fix what Kakashi's done, if he lets her send him into exile after all. And poor Shiko, she never asked for any of this. Iruka would go with her, if she wanted. He'd try to love her, if she wanted. He had at one point; he is sure once he is removed from this whole Kakashi debacle he can fall in love with her again. Even though right now the thought makes him feel like he's drowning in his own stomach acid.

 

He shakes his head. He's not sure if his main concern right now is not letting Kakashi get away with what he's done, or what's best for the village. What would be best for the village? Under these circumstances, he doesn't have a clue. That's up to the Hokage, anyway, he supposes. He'll bow to whatever decision she makes, at the end of all this.

 

His eye falls on the chair at the end of the table in his dining area, knocked askew in his cleaning frenzy. A memory hits him with such clarity that he can almost see it playing out in front of his waking eyes.

 

Kakashi sits in the dining table chair, playing with skewers left over from dinner—chicken satay—and looking over at Iruka, who sits on the couch attempting, and failing, to grade papers.

 

Kakashi half-mumbles something that sounds like “Any chance you'll get my rocks off?”

 

Iruka looks up, brows raised. “Excuse me?”

 

“I said, a penny for your thoughts.”

 

Iruka's mouth twists around a smile. Kakashi has weird ways of trying to get his attention sometimes. “Sure you did. My hearing's not that bad.”

 

Ignoring him, Kakashi continues, “You're obviously not thinking about grading those papers; you've been hovering over that one for fifteen minutes. I'm sure little—” his eye flashes down to the paper on Iruka's lap, which he can apparently read upside-down and across the room, “—Tampopo-chan is a fine student, but surely her essay on elementary interrogation tactics isn't that complex?”

 

Iruka sighs, picking up the essays and putting them on the end table beside him. “I can't concentrate,” he admits, leaning his head back and gazing at the ceiling.

 

“Headache?”

 

“No, not really. I'm just…I don't know. Melancholy or something.”

 

Kakashi frowns. “That's not like you.”

 

“I miss Naruto a lot.” Iruka scratches at his scar. “He hasn't written, you know. I'm not worried about his safety, since he's with Jiraiya-sama, but…”

 

“If he hasn't written, he can't. You know that. He can't draw any attention to his location, even if it's anonymous.”

 

“I know.”

 

A lull in the conversation, then Kakashi pats his legs. “Come sit here.”

 

Iruka's eyes narrow. “I'm neither a child nor a woman, K—”

 

Kakashi rolls his eye and gets up, walks across the room and sits on Iruka, straddling him. Not in a sensual way, though it still heats Iruka's blood a little. He links his arms behind Iruka's head. “You have to get over this baffling inferiority complex; sitting on my lap doesn't make you any less of a man, Sensei. Besides, you can't equate women with children, or you'll be eaten alive by kunoichi.”

 

“I'm not equating them to anything. They're just different from me.”

 

“Oh, don't I know it.” Kakashi leers for a moment. “So what can I do to help lighten your mood, besides sex, which I know you're going to say you're not up for? We could do something to remind the village of our little orange absentee. Want to paint obscene graffiti all over the Hyuuga mansion? Deface the Hokage monument or any other of the village's most prominent sacred symbols?” He pauses for a moment. “Except the KIA memorial. That would bring rabid karmic doom upon us. Plus I don't want to.”

 

Iruka laughs. “I don't think any of that's necessary. How about we go out to eat, somewhere we've never been before? It's been a long time since we've done that. As long as there's alcohol. I could use a drink.”

 

Kakashi's face lights up like a sunlamp, making Iruka smile broadly, though he's a bit confused as to why this suggestion is so pleasing. “Sounds great! Let's go as civilians, too.”

 

Iruka's eyes widen. It's extremely rare that Kakashi will venture out in civvies. “Is this a special occasion?”

 

“Yes.” Kakashi suddenly hugs Iruka tightly, burying his face in the chuunin's neck. “Yes, it is,” he whispers.

 

A knock at the door rouses Iruka from his reverie, and he's annoyed to find that tears are running freely down his face. He scrubs at them impatiently, and checks his face in the mirror near the door. He looks harassed, and his eyes are a little bright, but he can deal with that. He opens the door to find Shiko standing there.

 

She smiles. “Hey, how'd it go today?”

 

Like he's run face-first into a brick wall, Iruka realizes that the memory he's just had might not even really be a memory of Kakashi. It might be a distorted, warped memory of this woman, adapted to suit Kakashi's purpose. And suddenly he can't handle all of this anymore.

 

He opens his mouth to say something, but all that comes out is a strangled squeak.

 

Shiko's eyes widen in alarm as he crumples forward to the floor. “Iruka!”

 

He's on his knees, bent over so far his face is almost on the floor, as deep, bitter sobs tear his throat. He hears Shiko close the front door, feels her sit behind him, her thighs closing around his hips and her hands pulling him gently back against her chest. He doesn't resist; he even grabs her hands and holds them tightly when her arms encircle him. She doesn't say anything, just lays her head on his shoulder while he shakes apart against her, trying to hold him steady.

 

It's the first time he can remember being grateful for her presence.