Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Need You Now
By : djserani
Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male
Views: 3670 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto and I make no money from it!
Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
"Your target is an s-rank missing-nin." She said as the bingo sheet was handed to him. "He surfaced near the north-eastern border of Earth Country, some one hundred kilometers north of Iwa. Your objective is to take him out. Dismissed." Tsunade said.

Takashi Machio was a nasty piece of work. A water user of some renown, he's a wielder of one of the seven legendary swords. He disappeared from Mist over twenty years ago, surfacing now and again to wreak havoc mostly on border towns and other minor areas. They'd nearly caught him a few years before when he was hired by a yakuza boss hoping to get his fingers into the shinobi nations. Yamato had heard about Kakashi's battle with Zabuza years before. He'd have thought the yakuza would have learned their lesson, then. Apparently not.

Kakashi had been in on the mission against Takashi last time, so had Yamato as well as the rest of team seven. The swordsman had slipped through their fingers after a long and nasty fight and gone under. Now he was back. But for the love of all that's holy, Yamato wondered, did it have to be so far away?

He went over the details in his mind as they travelled. He was grateful, at least, that they could move as fast as they could. Even as far as their destination was, it wouldn't take too long to get there. The panther-masked female travelled silently about ten meters to his right. There were four other members of his team nearby, equally as silent. No one, not even other shinobi, would know when they passed. Thus was the advantage of ANBU.

It was a bigger team than normal, but Tsunade just didn't want to give the nin a chance to slip away again, he knew. Along with that was the fact that, even after the Fourth war, relations with Earth country were still not all that spectacular. Tsunade had never forgiven the Tsuchikage for hiring the Akatsuki way back when instead of working to defeat them. Even if his former student was a member.

Tenzou took a deep breath, forcing his mindset into ANBU and onto the mission. They'd be passing the border of Earth shortly. It was time to focus.

Kakashi was being avoided. It had been happening all morning, but he only first realized it when he approached the mission desk after lunchtime. He'd had contact with only a few people that morning thus far, and everyone else he'd went to see had been conveniently missing or needed to be somewhere else really quickly.

Sakura had healed his hand as much as she could and bandaged it the rest of the way. He'd managed to break two knuckles when he punched the wall. So instead of his glove, he wore bandages, which only succeeded in annoying him because it happened to be the hand that usually held his book.

As he stepped into the jounin facility and started toward the desk to report in, he saw Iruka and two other chunin there. The other two nin on the desk glanced at him, said something to Iruka, got up and left very fast. Kakashi watched them leave with mild irritation. The only one who stayed was Iruka, who for some reason, didn't seem at all perturbed by the copy nin's appearance. He looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "Did one of your books attack you?"

Kakashi blinked at him. Iruka was one of the few people that never seemed to be afraid of him. Kakashi could respect that, because they had to know he'd never do anything to them unless they were found betraying Konoha. So the fact that the teacher showed respect to his jounin rank, but not fear of him, always sat pretty well with the copy nin. He shook his head. "No, the wall did," he said with a perfectly straight face. Iruka didn't respond, but there was a twinkle of amusement in his eye. "I'm reporting in, though Sakura says I'm not supposed to do anything for a few days." He didn't know just how much annoyance showed in his one eye.

Iruka stared at the older man for a moment, the amusement fading. "Yamato get called up?"

The only visible response to that from Kakashi was the slight widening of his eye. He nodded minutely. "This morning."

Iruka gave his own nod, then looked down at the desk. "He'll be back." That was all he said, but there was a wealth of understanding in the three words. He pulled a clipboard to himself and made a note. "I'll take you off the roster for now. Let me know when your hand is healed."

Kakashi just stood and stared at the younger man a moment, his respect going up another notch. "Thank you," he said simply and turned to leave.

"There are a few of us meeting at the Krooked Kunai later, if you decide you don't want to stay home," Iruka said as he stepped away.

Kakashi looked over his shoulder. "I'm not sure I'm good company right now. Thanks, though."

Iruka shrugged a shoulder. "None of us are." He said and the meaning was clear - all of their significant others were gone. "The offer stands."

Kakashi nodded once more and left.

Iruka watched the copy nin walk out and when the door closed behind him, he let the breath out he'd been holding. He swallowed hard and stared, unseeingly, at the top of the desk. If Yamato was gone and Kakashi wasn't, it could only mean he was out as ANBU. He closed his eyes briefly, working to corral his emotions. The next few days were going to suck badly.

The tsuchikage had been tipped off. It was the only thing Tenzou could think of and that meant that there was a leak somewhere. No one on his team would have been caught. No one would have made enough noise to alert someone.

But they'd been ambushed. Fifty kilometers inside Earth Country, they'd come across some of the Rock shinobi. There was supposed to be a peace treaty in effect, so he didn't understand why the Rock ninja were attacking them, but that could be worked out later. The fact was, they'd been attacked and it was bad.

The fight had been downright ugly. Even though most of them were earth users, there had been a few lightning nin in the group which had made Tenzou's earth release jutsus much less then effective. The two with lightening cutters had pretty much made his mokuton jutsus totally useless, running along them to hit him instead of being stopped. He much preferred when Kakashi and his lightening was working with him than if he was facing it.

They'd also brought a bomb expert along and managed to hide the tags well enough to set them off before they were detected. He wasn't sure how they'd been able to do that. They'd moved into a section of forest on the edge of the cliff face and had, annoyingly, been funneled through a narrow stretch of the trees. When the bombs went off, one of their team had been killed instantly. The other they were forced to abandon, leaving them to their suicide, which succeeded in seriously pissing Tenzou off.

He forced the emotions back, as he'd been doing for nearly twenty years and concentrated on getting the rest of his team out of there. He'd taken one of those lightening cutters to the back and knew he had internal bleeding, his back was sliced all to hell and his right arm didn't want to work at all. On top of that, his katana was gone and his mask was cracked, though those were the least of his worries.

The panther had been one of the first hit and the one that had been killed instantly, which is one of the reasons the rest of the bombs had been effective. It was also what tipped him off to the fact that they had been informed. She was their explosives expert. The Rock nin had known who she was.

Two more of his team were injured, but thankfully still able to keep moving, so they kept going. He had no idea the extent of his injuries, but he hadn't been willing to stop to catalog them. After the panther and the hawk had been taken out and the other two had been hit, he'd called the retreat.

There'd been way too many Rock nin. They may have been ANBU, but he knew how to calculate the odds and they weren't in Konoha's favor. Besides, the defeat of the Rock shinobi wasn't their objective and with the loss of the two team members and the injuries to the other three, completing the mission at that point was out of the question. Even if they could have found the missing-nin, he somehow doubted they could have defeated them in their condition.
Tenzou sighed. He was getting tired of ANBU. He was getting tired of missions like these. Tired of masks and code names and leaving people behind. Tired of missing the one person he loved.

Kakashi stepped into the bar that evening and his eyes moved over the tables, landing, finally, on Iruka. He was sitting with two jounin Kakashi knew vaguely and another academy instructor. They weren't talking much, all four of them mostly hunched over their drinks. He threaded his way through the tables and approached them.

The four shinobi looked up at him and they all smiled, even if the smiles weren't very bright. "Hi, Kakashi-san. Have a seat," Iruka offered, waving his hand at the last open chair at the round table which was next to his.

Kakashi took the seat, and turned to the others present. Closer up, he recognized one of them as Maiko, a fair-haired new jounin who'd just been promoted a few months prior and Anju, who reminded him creepily of Anko, and who had just been given her own team a few weeks ago. The other instructor he'd seen the few times he'd been in the academy building was otherwise unknown to Kakashi. "This is Daichi-san," Iruka said in introduction and Kakashi nodded to him.

They sat in silence together for a while, each sipping on their own drinks, staring mostly at the table and despite not knowing the others well, Kakashi realized he felt a little better. Every one of the people at the table was probably thinking something similar to him in some way or another. Each of the others had someone out on a mission right now that may or may not come back.

"Yamato." He said into the silence when his drink had been delivered and he'd taken a sip.

"Raido," Iruka volunteered, glancing at Kakashi, then taking a gulp of his own.

"Genma," Anju said and smiled, playing with a necklace around her neck.

"Mitsue." This from Daichi while he stared at the ring on his left hand.

"Kazumi," Maiko said. "He's been gone three weeks," she nervously twisted her wedding ring. She was pale and there were dark shadows under her eyes.

Iruka shook his head. "Raido only left late last week." He glanced at Kakashi who felt a little silly being this messed up after only one day. Then again, Yamato was ANBU and that carried a whole other level of danger. The look Iruka sent him made him wonder. Did he know Yamato was ANBU? He wasn't supposed to, but Kakashi had learned by now that the teacher was not someone to underestimate.

Kakashi sighed. "He only left this morning." He shook his head. "Must seem pretty silly to you."

But they were all shaking their heads. "It doesn't get any easier or harder, really." Anju said. "This is the third mission I've been left behind for. I was out on another with my new team when he was sent." She shrugged. "It just�is."

"One of my students today asked me why ninja didn't get married a lot. I had no idea how to put it so a seven year old kid could understand." Iruka drained his glass and waved to the waitress for another. "Even if they're going to be shinobi someday, this isn't something you can easily explain."

"The older ones seemed to understand a bit better. They might even be reading my moods and know when she goes." He shook his head. "I think I must get crabby."

"No one would talk to me today," Kakashi said, his eye crinkling for the first time all day. "Except Iruka-san."

Iruka chuckled and looked at the others at the table. "The other two on the mission desk left when he came in."

"It's not like I would have sent a chidori after them or anything, I mean, really." He shook his head, rolling his eye.

The others laughed. "The first time Mitsue went out on a mission after we were married, no one talked to me for two days. I think I snapped everyone's head off that I talked to, including Lady Hokage's." He shook his head. "It's a damn good thing she's understanding."

They fell into a comfortable silence then, and Kakashi was just glad to not be at home. He probably would have put another hole in the wall. He was just finishing up his second bottle of sake when one of the younger chunin came bursting into the bar.

The five at the table glanced at each other when the kid zeroed in on them and every one of them stopped breathing. He nearly knocked four different people over as he approached the table. "D-Daichi-san. You're needed at the hospital." The kid looked scared to death at having to deliver the news.

They all looked over at Daichi. The man's face had drained completely of color. He swallowed hard and glanced from one of them to the other. As he stood, Kakashi looked up at him. "She's in good care. Sakura-chan and Tsunade-sama will take care of her. If she's made it back here, it's a good sign." Daichi stared at him a few seconds, then nodded gratefully before taking off.

The other four left at the table were in the process of feeling guilty and relieved. Guilty for being relieved. Iruka and Kakashi stared at each other for a few moments, silent understanding passing between them and the copy nin had the feeling there was more behind the teacher's look than his worry about Raido. He couldn't know and wasn't willing to push him and ask, so he watched him another minute, then they went back to sipping their drinks in silence. There was nothing left to say.

He made it through the night and managed, just barely, to keep from putting another hole in the wall. He'd ended up pretending to sleep on the couch, unable to face their bed alone. Not yet. He couldn't maintain that, but at least the first night was out of the way.

When the room started to lighten, he gave up the pretense and got up to make some tea. Cursing again the lack of a right hand, he fumbled with his left, finally managing to get it started. Dressing was its own fun, but after fighting with it all, he had clothes on and was back on the couch with a cup of tea.

Which is where he was when the knock came. He figured it was probably Sakura, wanting to check on his hand, so he was surprised when he opened it to a genin he didn't recognize. "Hatake-san?" The boy looked positively petrified.

"Yes?" Though he knew that he couldn't be mistaken.

"You�" he swallowed hard. "You're wanted at the hospital."

Kakashi's hand gripped the door hard. He had to swallow twice before he could answer. His own words came back to him. If she's made it back here, it's a good sign. He finally said, "I'll be right there."

The boy nodded and took off. Kakashi paused only long enough to put his sandals on, then locked the door and simply transported. He ran straight into the hospital and only stopped when he had no idea where to go.

He was standing at the front desk, staring at the directory when Sakura found him. "Kakashi-sensei, this way." She turned on her heel and took off, knowing he'd be right behind her. "He's still in surgery." She said and when he glanced over at her, the expression on her face was grim. "He'll make it, but he was bad when he got here."

"What�" he paused. "What was wrong with him?" He knew he couldn't ask what happened and Sakura probably wouldn't know, anyway.

"He'd taken a bad lightning cutter to the back. He was still aware enough to tell us that. And he'd gotten caught in an explosion, though the damage from that wasn't quite as bad." She paused outside of one of the surgery suites. "You'll have to wait here. He's got internal bleeding and his back was chewed up pretty badly." She put her hand on his arm. "But he'll recover. He was asking for you when he got here. I'll be out as soon as we're done."

Kakashi nodded. Sakura hurried through the doors, her lab coat flying behind her, leaving him alone. He stared after her for a moment, watching the door swing a few times before it stilled. Then he turned and made the first of many laps along the hallway in front of the doors.
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Need You Now	By : djserani Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3670 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto and I make no money from it!

Need You Now