As the last of the sickening smell of Shida Akumaru's funeral pyre rose on black smoke into the cool autumn sky, dissipating into the evergreens, Iruka returned to Kakashi to find him awake and staring at the smoldering remains. He knelt by the jounin's side and reached a hand under the blanket to touch his arm.

"May you go to whatever afterlife you deserve, Akumaru-san," Kakashi whispered, watching the smoke drift away.

"How... how can you pray for the soul of that bastard traitor?" Iruka's fingers clenched unconsciously around Kakashi's shoulder. He stared in disbelief at his pallid, injured lover.

"It is not my role to judge the dead." Kakashi's sigh bubbled and wheezed in his chest. "And as bad as he was... before that.." he stopped, shut his eye, and pulled in a rasping breath. "He was my comrade."

"I can't believe you forgive him. I... I... look at you!" Iruka felt on the verge of breaking apart.

"I don't forgive him. But..." Kakashi choked on his words and started coughing, then clutched his abdomen, writhing.

"Ai! Don't talk! Stop talking! You were doing better before!" Iruka's voice rose in alarm.

Kakashi groaned, eye closed, cold sweat trickling down his face; he felt like he was drowning in pain. 'It's too much,' he thought, 'I can't do this.'

"Kakashi?" He felt Iruka's hand on his shoulder, heard the anxious worry in the younger man's voice.

"How long... since you gave me... that stuff?" Kakashi asked through clenched teeth.

Iruka pulled a silver pocket watch out and checked it. "About 45 minutes."

"Too soon. Wore off... too soon."

"Do you want...? There's another one..." Iruka offered.

"No. Might need it... later. If things get worse." Kakashi gagged and gasped, desperate for more air, his kunai-pierced lung partly collapsed and congested with blood.

"Worse? Worse than this?" Iruka was startled. How much worse did Kakashi think it could get?

"My vest," Kakashi said, "In the leftmost scroll pouch. Slit the lining."

Iruka took a kunai from his holster and did as Kakashi asked, reaching two fingers into the slit and extracting a slip of blue and silver paper origamied into a narrow envelope.

He held it out to Kakashi. "This?"

"Open it."

Iruka carefully unfolded the paper, discovering inside three slim, iridescent needles.

"Kakashi, are these...?"

"Un. Use one. My neck."

"But these... they're illegal! It's too dangerous!"

"Iruka..." Kakashi sounded weary, "we have to go... ten kilometers. I can't take... any more pain."

Iruka stared at the jutsued senbon. Kakashi was right, he probably couldn't tolerate the journey as he was now. But this was... People had died using these.

"Ruka. Listen to me." Kakashi coughed, blood spattering from his lips. "It'll keep me... going. I'm not... letting that bastard... win."

"OK. But not the neck. It's too risky with your breathing this bad." Iruka swallowed. "I'll go for your solar plexus - that'll still cover the worst injury."

Kakashi closed his eye and nodded in silent assent. Iruka was probably right to avoid the neck and chest, even if it meant the poisoned kunai wound would get little relief. He could feel the toxic substance still flowing through his body, changing its method of attack as it worked its way through his nervous system. The nausea was finally receding, replaced by a crawling tightness in every muscle, and his vision was blurred and painful. 'It feels like I've got nails through my eye sockets,' he thought, 'What the hell was on that blade?'

Iruka folded the blanket down to Kakashi's hips and eased the hem of his sweater up, exposing a blood-smeared and bandaged abdomen. "You're sure about this?" he asked, holding one of the tiny senbon poised over Kakashi's belly.

"Yeah. Go in at about a... forty-degree angle... toward my heart."

"I... what if I...? Iruka couldn't finish. 'What if I divert too much chakra? What if I miss the critical spot? What if I go too far?'

"You can do this, Ruka. I trust you."

'But I don't trust myself,' Iruka thought. His hand shook a little as he angled the needle, visualizing the chakra pathways he was trying to hit, the nerves he wanted to control, the vital organs he had to thread the dangerous thing between. He placed his free hand on Kakashi's upper abdomen, searching for the anatomical landmarks, feeling tensely strained muscles twitch beneath his fingers.

At the touch of Iruka's palm, a pained grunt escaped Kakashi's lips before he could stop it. 'Tough it out, Hatake,' he gritted to himself. He didn't want to spook Iruka. Using the contraband senbon was their best chance at making it to the field station, despite the risks, and in the state he was in he didn't think he could place it himself. "Please, Ru-kun..." he groaned. The chill breeze blowing across his uncovered body made him shiver.

Iruka swallowed, said a silent prayer to the gods of healing, and plunged the senbon into Kakashi's flesh between the base of his sternum and his navel. Kakashi gasped and went rigid as the oily-colored needle seemed to take on a life of its own, driving itself deeper and deeper until it disappeared below the surface of his skin.

"Kakashi!" Iruka screamed his lover's name, eyes wide with fear.

"D... dai... daijoubu. It's... OK," Kakashi rasped, feeling the jutsu coursing through his body. The desperate agony of the sword wound began to ice over, growing remote, and an alien energy flowed through his chakra meridians. He sucked in a shaky breath and opened his eye, reaching his hand for Iruka's, which was frozen tensely on his abdomen.

"It's working. It's supposed to do that." Kakashi squeezed the chuunin's fingers.

"Oh gods, Kakashi." Iruka shuddered. He couldn't even begin to articulate the horror he had experienced feeling the chakra come alive under his fingers, the flare of Kakashi's life force spiraling out along the needle before the device had been sucked and sealed inside. "I could have killed you!"

"Yeah... That's why they're illegal." Kakashi coughed, but this time the jarring torment the action sent through his body dissipated and deadened below the point at which the needle had entered, more like the memory of pain than pain itself. Even the kunai wound in his chest felt less dire, less acute, despite the fact that it was above the point of the jutsu's action.

"It'll be OK now, Ruka-kun... Should buy us a few hours."

"You're... you're OK?"

"I'm OK. It's helping a lot." Kakashi smiled with only a little less than his usual sparkle. 'It's only half a lie,' he thought, 'With half the pain countered, and the chakra crutch, I can recover some of my own strength.'

Iruka smiled back weakly and stroked his lover's sweaty hair. "How long will it work, really?"

"Eh, should have maybe..."

Iruka could see Kakashi calculating, crafting an answer.

"Don't reassure me, Kakashi. Tell me the truth."

The jounin looked surprised. "Am I that transparent?"

Iruka just squeezed his hand.

"Ano... I don't know how the poison's... gonna affect it..." Kakashi paused for breath, chest heaving. "Two, three hours?"

Iruka nodded. 'Two hours, then,' he told himself. 'Even if he's telling me the truth, I know he's being optimistic.'

"You think you'll be OK to go in a few minutes, Kashi?"

"Un... yeah."

"I'll carry you on my back. Put your vest on you - should keep you warmer," Iruka planned aloud. "Maybe the blankets, too. Can I put your backpack on you?"

"Yeah. And my weapons."

"OK, I'll carry the... other ones." Iruka glanced at the pile of Akumaru's belongings with distaste.

"Ruka... you're good at this..." Kakashi wheezed, "Should teach a... field-aid unit."

'Damn, his breathing sounds worse,' Iruka thought. He looked closely at the jounin, who was panting open-mouthed.

"How's your chest?"

"I'll live."

"You're having trouble breathing. I can hear it."

"I was stabbed."

"Dammit, Kakashi! Take this seriously! Don't give me your flip non-answers! I need to know how you are!" Iruka glared at his lover, fire burning in his smokey brown eyes.

'Oh shit, I made him mad,' Kakashi thought.

"I'm sorry, Ru-chan... I'm alright... Hurts, but... it really is better."

"And your breathing?"

"'S'a little... difficult... " Kakashi gave a small, wet cough.

"You said ten kilometers, right?"

"About that."

"OK, tell me how to get there, but don't talk too much. Save your breath."

Kakashi nodded. "It's north-northwest... hidden trail... from that bunker..." he broke off coughing hard, bloody foam rising in his windpipe. Once again the senbon's jutsu deadened the pain of the cough before it could spread to his slashed abdomen. He was dimly aware of the fact that it should have hurt more, but the effort to breathe took most of his attention.

Iruka tensed, expecting the cough's jarring motion to send Kakashi into agony. When it didn't, he felt a moment's relief, but the jounin's greying features revived his alarm. "Kakashi! Breathe! Can you breathe?" He grabbed the struggling man's shoulders and rolled him onto his side.

"I'm... trying..." Kakashi gagged, then expelled a mass of clotted blood and frothy slime. Airway clearer, he lay gasping, the cyanotic tinge slowly fading from his lips.

Iruka's heart was beating almost as wildly as Kakashi's. 'What can I do? There's gotta be something I can do!' He stared at the heaving, bandaged ribs of his comrade and saw that the crimson stain was spreading and deepening. Tearing open his knapsack, he yanked out the medical kit and frantically searched it, extracting a slim paper pouch and a new roll of gauze.

"'M... OK... Ru..." Kakashi panted, his eye glazed.

"Be quiet! You're not OK, you're bleeding into your chest, dammit!" Iruka's hands shook as he peeled back Kakashi's bandage, freeing a red fountain to spray into the air and stream down his side. The chuunin gasped, then slammed the fresh clot-forming sponge over the source of the blood, holding it down tightly with both hands and sending his own chakra pouring into the breach.

Kakashi hissed sharply as Iruka mercilessly compressed the stab wound between his broken ribs. The electric jolt of the chuunin's raw chakra spread through his side and deep into his chest. From somewhere far below the surface of his blunted consciousness, Kakashi took charge of his lover's chakra, forming it into a healing jutsu for internal bleeding, one he had learned from Rin many, many years ago. He heard her voice softly instructing, "Shape it into a cone, then drive it into the center of the wound."

Iruka was startled to feel the power he was directing begin to change shape. 'My god, he's able to mold my chakra?' His first instinct was to wrest control away from the jounin, but he forced himself to maintain the current of energy. Almost imperceptibly at first, but soon quite noticeably, the blood flow slowed to a trickling ooze, which the jutsued bandage was more than able to contain.

When he was sure the bleeding had all but stopped, Iruka pulled his hands away and let out the trembling breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, drained and puffing as if he had just run a race. He was startled when he felt Kakashi's hand caress his cheek.

"Ruka? You alright?"

"Me? Oh gods, Kakashi! You're..." Iruka was at a loss for words. He grabbed Kakashi's hand in his right and clung tightly, stroking the jounin's hair with his left.

"I'm OK, Iruka. I'm here," Kakashi soothed, "Catch your breath a minute. That was a lot of chakra."

Iruka's racing heart slowly settled back to its normal rhythm as he continued to pet Kakashi's head, saying nothing.

'That was something else, Iruka-kun,' Kakashi thought, watching his lover recover from the effort. He was drained as well, but could feel a difference in his body with the bleeding stopped, though his chest ached and his breathing remained ragged. The toxic headache and nerve pain had become a background noise. The jutsued senbon continued to radiate its strange energy through his chakra paths, countering pain, poison and exhaustion, blocking sensation from the gaping slash across his gut.

"Two hours, Ruka-kun," Kakashi said at length, feeling the air cool and the shadows deepen, "Can you do it?"

"Two hours. Ten kilometers. Yeah, I can do it."

"OK, we should go, if you're ready."

"You're sure you can handle it?" The chuunin stared searchingly at Kakashi.

"I'll have to," Kakashi replied soberly.

When Iruka had loaded up and was preparing to move Kakashi at last, the jounin stopped him. "The mask. Give me Shida's mask."

"What?"

"Put it... on my belt."

Iruka helped his comrade to a kneeling position, then solemnly hung the mask from Kakashi's waist, where the insect face leered a final tribute to it's fallen owner. He squatted in front of Kakashi, who leaned against his back and placed his arms around Iruka's neck. Reaching behind him, Iruka placed a hand under each of Kakashi's thighs, then rose to his feet with a lurch.

"North-northwest?"

"North-northwest. Look for the leaf markers."

"Hai. Hold on."

Settling Kakashi's weight over his hips, Iruka set off in the direction of the field unit.

End Chapter 8

ooo ooo ooo

Japanese words:

daijoubu - it's alright. Can also be a question - are you alright?

enbon - needle that can be used as a weapon or a healing instrument, depending on size and how it is placed

Author's Notes and Thank-yous:

I guess I am a suspense writer - I got so caught up while writing parts of this chapter that I was unconsciously holding my breath. My neck and shoulders ached, and not from typing, from anxiety.

Please forgive me if I don't answer all my reviews individually - I'd like to acknowledge each of you who are helping to make this such an immense pleasure for me. I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and delight. Please do continue to write specific comments if you are able, as they spur me to the greatest creative heights. If you'd like to hear back from me, drop me an email (available on my profile page.)

I've posted a couple of illustrations for this story, including one for the milk-tea scene, on my DA site: nezuko dot deviantart dot com

I don't intend to do this every time, but I want to answer a question that came up in reviews for the previous chapter: "Why didn't Iruka just cut Kakashi's sweater off of him, and why did he bother to save it?"

I actually considered these very questions while I was writing that chapter; this is how I conceived it: Iruka is under tremendous pressure here. Despite this, he is making generally excellent decisions, but he's not perfect. It probably would have been easier to cut the sweater off, but it just didn't occur to him to do so. As to why save the sweater - that's a strongly emotion-based and unthinking action. This is the bloodied uniform of the man he loves, a man who may not live to see the next sunrise. Keeping the soiled clothing is an unconscious attempt to keep Kakashi himself.

Thank you again for the wonderful, detailed, supportive reviews. I hope you will continue to read, review, and enjoy my writing.

Nezuko

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