Chapter Text
Iruka wished he could say he didn’t know how he ended up sitting in the surveillance van instead of swanning around as one of the cool and suave ANBU agents in the field. All he’d ever wanted was to take potshots at bad guys and rescue innocent civilians while undercover. He dreamed of using cool gadgets, and swapping identities like they were a set of clothes to be changed into and out of at one’s earliest convenience.
But he’d tried that, for a little while, and he’d royally fucked up several crucial missions. That was the point where he’d been gently encouraged to leave field missions to more experienced agents and try his hand at something a little less public-facing. Which, as it turned out, suited Iruka a lot better. While his detail work could use a little help in the field, he was great at sorting through data, picking apart building schematics, and identifying security flaws. Before he knew it, Iruka found himself working with top agents – not shoulder-to-shoulder, the way he’d hoped to be when he first joined ANBU, but instead as the tinny voice in their ear, the guy in the chair who made sure their missions ended in success, even if the help often went unrecognized by most.
If there was one thing that drove Iruka up the wall, it was how many people treated their intel-gathering and data transmissions as a joke, because his greatest fear was an incomplete picture of a situation when he was sending an agent into the field. While he wasn’t the one sending people out on missions, he nonetheless had a role that was crucial not only to the people on the ground but also mission command, the one who had to know everything and anticipate not only what ANBU needed to know but when and where that knowledge would be most useful.
And whoever had fucking submitted this security report was going to be getting an earful from Iruka as soon as they got back to base, because it was pathetic.
“Hound,” he said, lifting a hand to his mic and speaking clearly. “Do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Dolphin,” Hound replied from his position, crouched beside a large water tank on the roof of a very tall building. The wind was whistling loud enough that it caused some crackling over the connection as he spoke. Or maybe it was just bad equipment. Iruka was going to need to yell about that, too, probably.
“I’m getting interference from the structure that can’t be explained by the schematics I’m looking at,” Iruka told him, scowling at the blueprints on his monitor as if hoping they would apologize and explain themselves to him. “I’m going to need to do a secondary scan, but I need a satellite for that, and the nearest one is two minutes out.”
“Copy, standing by,” Hound answered, and stayed hunkered down. If Iruka had been out there in the cold, vicious wind, his joints would have been aching by now. But Hound was nothing if not a consummate professional. He was one of ANBU’s top agents for a reason. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Can you see anything?” Iruka asked, a bit absently, looking for the code he needed to get the satellite under his control without giving away the fact that it was going to be temporarily serving his purposes instead of working for whatever government had launched it up there in the first place.
“My eye isn’t exactly fitted with x-ray vision,” Hound pointed out with mild annoyance. He’d been part of a discontinued program facilitated through Uchiha Technologies to install bionic prosthetics into ANBU agents who were injured in the field. Precious few of the agents currently on active duty could claim to be using an Uchiha prosthesis, as the company had gone belly-up only a few months into the experimental program. The eye was able to record video, slow down and speed up input, connect to subcutaneous transmitters for instantaneous streaming of the visual input, and even possessed rudimentary diagnostic software with predictive tools that allowed Hound to not only memorize the moves of his opponents but also predict and counter those attacks. It could be very useful at times, though apparently not so much in this case.
“Right,” Iruka said, “Well, if you do see something…”
“You’ll be the first to hear about it,” Hound assured him.
“Hang in there, I’ve almost got the satellite,” Iruka said, and then stopped talking so he could fully focus on his satellite hack. When he had managed to access it, he was able to get a better picture of what he was working with, and was pleased to discover the satellite was one of the good ones, with excellent scanning capabilities. He didn’t bother seeing which country had constructed it, he just skimmed whatever schematics he could find for the structure and downloaded it while he worked on taking over the internal systems. The techies back at ANBU HQ would be able to get a better idea of how to reconstruct any advanced tech installed on the satellite than he could, especially on such short notice. He was just grateful enough to access the long-range scanner array built into it. A few more seconds of fighting the satellite and he was able to adjust the scanner’s targeting system, focusing the majority of its potential on the building where Hound was crouched.
“I can see dat ass from space,” Iruka smirked to himself.
“Focus on the mission, Dolphin…”
Iruka felt his face heat. In his rush to get the satellite hacked, he’d forgotten that he had left his mic on. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
“Am I supposed to hear the verdict on this building anytime soon?” Hound drawled.
“Give me a second,” Iruka groused, and zoomed in on the scans. “Damn.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Hound quipped. “Should I be worried?”
Iruka groaned. “Depends.”
“Depends on what?”
“On how well you like crawling through ventilations shafts.”
Hound just sighed into the mic, creating an even louder crackling sound than the wind still whipping around the rooftop.
By the time Hound flung himself into the getaway van, Iruka had managed to pack up his surveillance equipment and slide in behind the wheel.
“Go, go, go!” Hound waved for him to take off, and Iruka did as he was told, flicking on his blinker and carefully pulling into traffic, the maintenance vehicle politely merging with the passing cars that constituted late night traffic in the business district two blocks from their target building. The vehicle was almost aggressively nondescript, a slightly battered and dusty white van with sliding doors, sporting a cheery if faded ‘Hows my driving? Call 049-4567-5575’ bumper sticker on the back. Iruka was wearing his dark blue maintenance uniform, and Hound had also slipped into his own jumpsuit of the nondescript maybe-a-plumber, maybe-a-painter, maybe-an-electrician variety, probably while he was still in the ventilation shafts. Iruka wasn’t sure how he pulled off an outfit change in such a tight space, but he’d learned not to question it by now. There were some things better to leave to the imagination.
“Where to, Kakashi?” Iruka asked, driving ahead until given a directive. After all, he was just the guy in the van, not the guy calling the shots.
Kakashi turned his head, giving him a sharp look. “It’s Hound until the mission is finished, Dolphin.”
Iruka flinched at the harshness in his tone. “Right, sorry Hound. Old habits.”
Hound just shook his head, sighing. “Habits you never should have formed in the first place, if you ask me.”
Well I didn’t actually ask you, but whatever, Iruka thought, a little annoyed. “I’ll keep it more formal in the field, then.”
“Please do,” Kakashi said, sparing him another glance, his expression softening slightly. “It’s protocol.”
Iruka was generally one for protocol, but he always thought it was a little silly to use codenames once the mission was basically over. But Kakashi was even more of a stickler than he was, in some ways, and this was one of them. “I know, I know, you don’t have to remind me.”
“Apparently I do, since you keep making the same mistake,” Kakashi smirked.
“Keep it up and you’re walking back to HQ,” Iruka grumbled, before repeating his question, this time with a bit more protocol in his tone. “Now, if you would be so kind, Agent Hound, where to?”
“Entrance 16B,” Hound answered, leaning back in the passenger seat and resting his head against the headrest. He closed his eyes. “Mind if I take a nap?”
Iruka very strongly considered pointing out that naps weren’t exactly mission protocol either, but he hadn’t missed the deep shadows under Kakashi’s eyes, and he couldn’t in good conscience bring it up. Especially since he knew Kakashi would take it personally, and definitely not sleep a wink for the two hour drive back to HQ. “I have everything under control,” Iruka said, once more signalling before changing lanes, heading for the nearest on-ramp. “Get some rest.”
“Will do,” Kakashi said, voice already growing heavy with sleep.
He was softly snoring before Iruka pulled onto the expressway.
A quick debrief later, and Iruka was striding down one of the well-lit hallways, a mug of tea in each hand, heading for the Director’s office. He didn’t have to knock, because he knew Director Sarutobi saw him coming.
Sure enough, when he reached the door, it slid open, and Sarutobi Hiruzen glanced up from desk. “Agent Dolphin,” he said. “What a surprise.” He was not, in fact, surprised. Iruka had put precisely zero effort into concealing his objective, and he didn’t plan on doing so anytime soon. He set one of the mugs of tea in front of the director, then set the other down on the opposite side of the desk, helping himself to the only other chair in the room, dragging it in front of the desk and dropping into it with a heavy sigh.
“We need to talk.”
“What about?” Director Sarutobi asked, picking up his mug and taking a sip.
“There have been multiple balls dropped on Agent Hound’s last few missions,” Iruka said without preamble. “I’ve been able to compensate so far, but if this keeps happening, he’s going to be compromised beyond what I’m able to cover for.”
Director Sarutobi raised his eyebrows, but otherwise continued sipping his tea, clearly waiting for Iruka to continue.
“I need access to the intelligence records,” Iruka explained. “I need to see who keeps feeding us bad information. I have a feeling it might not be an accident. It’s starting to look like a pattern.”
Now the Director’s eyebrows were furrowing down into a scowl. “Agent Dolphin,” he chided, “that is a very serious accusation.”
Iruka knew that calling someone a traitor – even if that person was yet-unidentified – was not the sort of thing to be treated lightly. He wouldn’t have come straight to the top if he wasn’t certain that something nefarious was going on. “I need access to the intelligence records,” he said again, more firmly.
“That’s not my department,” the Director said. “If you want to see those files, you’ll need to go through internal affairs. That’s Associate Director Shimura’s division.”
Iruka grimaced. While he had a pretty good working relationship with Director Sarutobi, the same could unfortunately not be said for his interactions with the Associate Director. The man did not appreciate Iruka’s methods, nor Iruka’s brashness. He seemed to think that Iruka was too nosy, too loud, too outspoken to really be considered an effective agent. Iruka figured he did quite well at his job, and the Associate Director was just a stick-in-the-mud. But the fact was that they got along like oil and water, and if Associate Director Shimura was the one who held the access to the intelligence records, Iruka was never getting a chance to look at them. Not with permission, anyway…
But what sort of agent would he be if he let a little thing like protocol stop him from gathering necessary information?
As if sensing the direction Iruka’s thoughts were taking, Director Sarutobi set down the mug of tea and frowned a little more deeply. “Agent Dolphin,” he said. “I will take your concerns under advisement and contact Associate Director Shimura myself. I’m sure that this matter will be resolved without further involvement on your part.”
“Right,” Iruka said, not believing him at all. He’d trust the matter was solved when he saw it fixed with his own two eyes, and not a moment earlier. “Thank you for your time.”
“I mean it, Iruka,” the Director called after him, breaking protocol in order to grab his attention. “Leave it alone. Let me handle it.”
Iruka nodded. “I will, Director.”
He definitely was not going to leave it alone. Not until he could be assured of Kakashi’s safety.
Iruka may not have been the greatest at fieldwork, but he knew his way around a computer system or two, and it didn’t take much digging to note that, true to his suspicions, Director Sarutobi was taking precisely zero steps to confirm Iruka’s suspicions vis-a-vis the intelligence division being compromised.
Iruka wasn’t able to figure out who, exactly, was behind the sabotage. But it didn’t take much digging to discover that several files had been tampered with recently. He wasn’t sure if this meant that there was only one mole, or if the saboteurs were trying to lay a false trail for anyone investigating. He also noted that while Agent Hound had, by all appearances, been the most recent target, he wasn’t the first agent to that these saboteurs had set their sights on. There had been another agent, about a year earlier, who had apparently been suffering similar lapses in intelligence whenever he’d been sent out on a field mission. The intelligence failures had repeatedly caused him trouble, up to the point that one failure of information resulted in a catastrophic injury while in the field, and the agent had been ‘forcibly retired’ – whatever that meant – after the incident. Iruka wasn’t sure what the connection between Agent Raven and Agent Hound was, precisely. The only possible connection he could see between the two agents was that both Agent Hound and Agent Raven were closely tied to Uchiha Technologies, both of them having been recipients of experimental, now-discontinued bionic prosthetics.
He didn’t like thinking about who, exactly, might have an interest in seeing Agents with bionic prosthetics compromised in the field. Was someone trying to prevent the Agents from acting due to their high rate of success with these implants? Could it be jealousy that prompted someone to sabotage their efforts to the point that they were injured beyond recovery? Or worse, were the incursions and sabotage intended to incapacitate the agents with the ultimate aim of acquiring the experimental prosthetics, now that the company that had produced them was no longer functional?
He wondered if Kakashi might have a better idea of why the first man, Agent Raven, might have been targeted. He wondered if Kakashi knew the identity of Agent Raven, as that information had been totally erased from the system by an unknown user. Maybe, when Kakashi saw the same information as Iruka, he would come to a similar conclusion. Perhaps, though, he might see something in these patterns that Iruka wasn’t. In any case, it was time to get a second opinion. He didn’t feel comfortable holding onto this information alone – someone needed to know, and if anyone had a right to know that Agent Hound was being targeted, it was the man himself.
He needed to talk to Kakashi.
“So,” Iruka said, leaning back in his chair, eyeing Kakashi warily, “What do you think?”
Kakashi was eyeing the small pile of papers Iruka had just finished explaining with a baleful look in his eyes. “What did you say was the reason you dug all this up?”
“Because of the information gaps we’ve been seeing,” Iruka said. “Your missions have been–”
“There’s always gaps in mission intel,” Kakashi interrupted, sounding vaguely annoyed. “That’s why it’s important to be able to improvise in the field.”
“Yes, but no,” Iruka said, starting to feel a bit annoyed. “Of course not everything can be predicted, but if you look at the incidence rate–” he started flipping through some of the scattered papers, looking for the one where he’d put together a table that numerically expressed exactly how bad the intel had been, and at which point it had started deteriorating, and the rate of deterioration based on previous mission parameters.
Before he could find the right page, though, Kakashi pushed his hands aside, laying a palm flat over the papers so Iruka couldn’t dig through them. “You’re not hearing me,” he said, his voice cold. “This is the job I’m paid to do. It’s not a safe job, it’s never going to be safe.” He scowled. “You need to accept that.”
“I can accept acceptable risk,” Iruka said. “But this is unacceptable levels of–”
“Dolphin,” Kakashi interrupted him with uncharacteristic harshness, “Are you sure you’re not chasing ghosts?”
Iruka blinked back at him, trying in vain to process what Kakashi just said to him. “Sorry?”
“I know you wanted to be a field agent,” Kakashi said. “But this isn’t the way to gain experience. You can’t go hunting ghosts and turning up conspiracies that don’t exist to try and make yourself feel more important.”
Iruka felt like it would have been kinder if Kakashi had chosen to stab him in the chest with one of the hidden blades in his mission gear. The words he’d leveled against him were infinitely more painful than a flesh wound could ever be. “That’s not what I’m doing!” Iruka protested. “Did you even look at Agent Raven’s record–”
“Agent Raven was too closely tied to Uchiha Technologies,” Kakashi interrupted him. “His retirement in the weeks before the company went bankrupt was likely due to the fact that his loyalty to the agency was compromised.”
“You don’t know that!” Iruka protested. “There’s nothing in the records to reflect that!”
“There’s nothing in the records to reflect anything about Shisui,” Kakashi pointed out.
Iruka frowned. “Shisui?”
“Agent Raven,” Kakashi corrected himself.
“Why does that name sound familiar?” Iruka wondered aloud.
“Stop it, Iruka,” Kakashi growled. “You’re looking for ghosts again. This isn’t the grand conspiracy you’ve blown it up to be. It’s probably just some new agents who haven’t learned to distinguish between good and bad intel yet. You can’t assign to malice that which can just as easily be attributed to incompetence.” He narrowed his eyes. “You would know all about that, given your field record.”
Iruka didn’t want to let the words affect him, but he couldn’t deny that it was devastating to have Kakashi, of all people, throw his incompetent field record in his face. Kakashi had been there, on his last mission, his biggest failure. He’d been the one who suggested Iruka turn his attention elsewhere, who had recommended Iruka speak to the Director about moving into a behind-the-scenes position, someone who stayed behind the screens instead of stepping into the field.
And he’d been right about it. But that didn’t mean he was right about this! Iruka wasn’t trying to reclaim some glory that he’d never fucking had. He was just trying to keep Kakashi safe, and the man wasn’t listening to him!
“I’m not chasing ghosts,” Iruka protested. “Just… look at the files, okay? You don’t have to agree with me. But at least look?”
Kakashi stared at Iruka for a long moment, then carefully scooped up the papers, pressing them into Iruka’s chest. “I’m sorry,” he said firmly, “but I’m not willing to enable this erratic behavior of yours. You didn’t even have permission to access most of this, and I’m not going to break protocol just to humor you.”
“Kakashi–”
“It’s Hound,” Kakashi snarled. “How many times do I have to remind you?”
We’re not in the field right now, Iruka wanted to protest, but he couldn’t manage to get any words past the lump in his throat. Instead, he just nodded miserably.
“You should take some time off,” Kakashi said, rising from the table where they’d been seated for the discussion. “Really think about what you’re doing.”
Iruka tried to hold the papers out to him again. “Please, just–”
“Don’t,” Kakashi interrupted him. “I don’t want to hear any more about this, or I’m going straight to the Director.” His gaze hardened as he added, “You could be fired for this, you know.”
Iruka wanted to argue the point, but he didn’t see the value in it when Kakashi was being stubborn. Instead, he swallowed back the arguments he wished to make, lowered his head, and stared at his feet as Agent Hound walked away, utterly unwilling to hear him out.
Clearly, he was just going to have to work twice as hard on the coming missions to make sure Kakashi made it out safely, since the man clearly wasn’t interested in hearing him out. What else was he supposed to do?
Iruka didn’t even know Kakashi had been assigned another mission until he saw the man suiting up and didn’t know why.
“Oh, Kakashi, were you going for some field training?” he asked, piling his own gear into his locker, preparing to head home for the day. He’d not been informed of any overtime, so his first assumption was that his fellow agent was simply overworking himself as he was wont to do.
“I have a mission,” Kakashi said, slamming his locker door with finality. “And that’s Agent Hound, to you.”
Iruka felt as if the locker door had been slammed in his face, not merely closed with the firm efficiency of an Agent heading out on a mission. “You have a mission?” he said. “But, I wasn’t informed…?”
“I requested a new support tech,” Kakashi said, sounding completely unapologetic about the clear and almost brutal rejection.
“But… why?” Iruka asked.
Kakashi just stared at him for a long moment, his gaze clearly saying You know why, thought he didn’t voice the thought. Instead, he just shook his head, slung his bag over one shoulder, and headed out of the locker room. “Have a good night,” he called back to Iruka, as if that was going to be possible when Kakashi was going into the field with some other agent who had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and no forewarning to check for sabotage in the intel.
“Sure,” Iruka muttered, and started pulling his stuff back out of the locker. “I’ll do that.”
Kakashi might be able to ice him out of the mission, but he was sorely underestimating Iruka if he thought Iruka wasn’t going to be able to keep an eye on him from wherever he was. He didn’t need a surveillance van to keep a watch over Kakashi. Any computer with enough processing power would do the job nicely.
Kakashi might not be worried, but Iruka wasn’t about to let the man go out there without an eye in the sky watching out for him, even if he wasn’t appreciative of the effort.
By the time Kakashi hopped into the surveillance van with Agent Rabbit, Iruka was already back in the computer room, plugged in and listening to every word they said. It wasn’t even that hard to piggyback on their systems – Agent Rabbit had never particularly excelled at operational security, and Iruka was no newbie when it came to accessing closed systems. He was a little annoyed that Mizuki hadn’t told him he was going on a mission with Kakashi, but maybe he’d been asked to keep it a secret. No one had told Iruka off for digging in the systems, so he could conclude that Kakashi hadn’t told anyone about his unapproved digging into the intelligence division’s systems. He’d been careful to cover his tracks during the incursion, so the chance of someone else knowing he’d gone behind the director’s back to investigate the potential sabotage was slim.
Still, it was a bit hurtful that no one had even told Iruka that he’d been pulled from Kakashi’s missions. Had they not told him because they thought he’d be upset, or because they just didn’t think he was important enough to warrant a heads-up? Either way, it was rude.
He tried to calm himself down while eavesdropping on the drive to the next mission.
“So,” Mizuki said after about ten minutes of complete silence, “You finally decided to drop the dead weight?”
“Come again?” Kakashi didn’t sound confused, but he did sound vaguely annoyed. Iruka knew the man hated small talk, especially before a mission. He said it made him lose focus.
“There were bets on how long it would take for you to shake him off,” Mizuki continued, a mocking sneer so obvious in his voice that Iruka could picture it in his mind’s eye. “Some people were even calling it Stockholm syndrome. You were stuck with him for so long you actually started to believe that he’s good at what he does.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Kakashi said. “Are you insinuating that I only worked with Agent Dolphin because I was psychologically compromised? You do know that Stockholm syndrome is a myth, yes?”
“It’s a joke,” Mizuki protested. “You don’t have to take it so seriously.”
“Agent Rabbit,” Kakashi said, his voice cold and dry, “this is a serious mission. Joking is not part of the accepted protocols for missions.”
As much as Iruka hated it when Kakashi cited protocol to him, he felt viciously victorious at how quickly Kakashi had shut down Mizuki’s insults. Part of him wanted to believe it was because Kakashi cared, but a larger part of him thought it was more likely that Kakashi was just a stickler for the rules.
“Besides,” Kakashi added after a long moment. “Agent Dolphin is an exemplary agent. He performs well under pressure and excels at improvisation.”
“Yeah, well,” Mizuki blustered back immediately, “If he’s so great, why didn’t you want him on this mission?”
“He needs a break,” Kakashi said honestly.
“And you don’t?” Mizuki sounded genuinely curious.
“It’s different,” Kakashi said.
Iruka was a little touched that even when he thought that it was just the two of them in the van, Kakashi wasn’t willing to drag Iruka’s name through the mud. He’d told Iruka to his face that he thought he was being paranoid, looking for things that weren’t there. He could have told Mizuki the same, but he hadn’t. It might have been waved off as protocol, except that Iruka was pretty sure that the real protocol in cases like his were to report him for psychological evaluation, and Iruka hadn’t been called in to see a specialist yet.
So Kakashi was still covering for him, even though that went against protocol. It was sweet.
He was still pissed about being pulled off the mission, though.
The two agents lapsed into silence for much of the drive, only occasionally discussing the plan for the mission. Iruka skimmed through the overview himself, and tried not to grimace at how badly the thing had been organized. Mizuki hadn’t taken any time at all to review the information and reorganize it into a more digestible format. It was like he didn’t care at all whether Kakashi was able to easily absorb the information. A field agent needed their information in as concise and clear language as possible, and Mizuki hadn’t taken any time at all to verify anything or condense it to only the critical information. This meant that Kakashi spent much of the ride in the car scrolling up and down, back and forth, cross-referencing information that Iruka would have compiled for him. He could watch the screen the man was using, even if he couldn’t see the man himself, and it was almost laughable how many times Kakashi had to re-read sections because they were almost unintelligible.
Maybe after this mission, Kakashi would realize just how much better at this Iruka was, and he’d give up on icing him out. It would be something to gloat about, at least. Maybe he’d force Kakashi to ask him to come back, refuse to work with him the next time! (He couldn’t do that; not when the man was being targeted by some yet-unknown party for some reason that may or may not have to do with his ties to Uchiha Technologies. But a man could dream!) Almost before he realized it, the van pulled up to some street parking, and Mizuki almost scraped the side of the van twice in his attempts to parallel park. Iruka tried not to feel smug about that, too, but failed. He’d done a great job in the driving test, and made a point of never drawing unnecessary attention to himself by being a polite and cautious driver at all times. Mizuki, on the other hand, seemed determined to attract complaint calls to the number posted on the back of the van.
Once the van was parked, Kakashi let himself out, and Mizuki started setting up his equipment in the back. Before long, Iruka had even more eyes and ears to help him eavesdrop on the mission from back at HQ. There was a tiny bit of a lag, given the distance, but it was less than a second, so he let it be. Better to have a little lag but more information than sacrifice accuracy for immediacy.
Before Iruka even had time to really settle in and familiarize himself with the information streams coming in through his remote setup, he noticed that the schematics in the mission brief and the building Kakashi was currently approaching were not, in fact, the same building. Mizuki, however, seemed completely unaware of this issue.
Cursing under his breath, Iruka weighed the pros and cons of butting in. If Mizuki realized he was spying on the two of them, he would absolutely report Iruka’s behavior to ANBU brass. And there was no way that he would get out of it with anything as minor as a slap on the wrist – you were not supposed to insert yourself into missions that were not your responsibility. But if he didn’t say anything, Kakashi was going to walk into a structure that he actually hadn’t been able to familiarize himself with. And Iruka was the paranoid one? Hah!
Before Iruka had decided whether or not to hack Kakashi’s short-range audio transmitter (he was pretty sure he could use one of the radio towers nearby, he’d done it before), things went from bad to worse.
Not only did Kakashi fail to deactivate a failsafe not described in the inaccurate schematics he’d been handed, there were people – other agents, most likely – waiting for him on the inside!
“No, no, no,” Iruka muttered under his breath, fingers flying over the keyboard as he pulled up the real schematic, something he’d been able to get ahold of with just a smidgen of corporate espionage and some intuition that came from years of doing this work. The fact that Mizuki hadn’t found the real schematic in at least the amount of time Iruka had, especially since he had more gear than Iruka, and wasn’t limited to taking advantage of backdoors into agency surveillance equipment to see what was happening out there, was just proof that he didn’t know half as much as Iruka did.
Kakashi was a good fighter, he’d always been excellent at hand-to-hand fighting, but the number of assailants he was facing was really running him through his paces. Even that probably would have been fine, except that one of the attackers had a strange device that seemed to emanate a strange frequency. It only somewhat knocked out Iruka’s eyes, but he’d gotten into the building cameras at this point, so he still had eyes on the situation.
Kakashi, however, was not so lucky. He went down hard, clutching his eye. It took Iruka several idiotic seconds to realize that whatever device they had, it had been keyed to Kakashi’s Uchiha Technologies bionic eye! How had they known about that? And how had they been able to effectively target a prosthetic eye when all the designs and implantation procedure records related to that eye had been erased from every known system?
Maybe, just maybe, a team that was specifically targeting agents who had been given Uchiha Technologies prosthetics could pull something like that off.
“I was right!” Iruka shouted, slamming his fist on the console in front of him, feeling absolutely no vindication from the realization, only incandescent rage. “I was right and– What the hell is Mizuki doing?” He turned to one of the monitors he’d stopped watching, too focused on the Kakashi fight. In the van, Mizuki was clearly panicking, punching buttons left and right, but not calling in the incident. He also wasn’t going in after Kakashi, instead just fumbling around the van like an idiot. He’d only had access to Kakashi’s eye camera feed, so when the attackers had targeted the eye, the feed had gone down. Mizuki had no eyes in the building, and he was freaking out instead of attempting to reestablish contact.
Turning back to the monitor where he’d piggybacked on the building cameras, Iruka decided enough was enough. He tried to reach Kakashi’s earpiece, bouncing his message off the nearest radio tower to try and enhance the signal.
“Hound!” he said, barely remembering to use the appropriate codename, feeling frantic. “Hound, do you hear me?”
There was a harsh crackle in his ears, a soft low hum of static, and nothing. Over the cameras, he saw three men grabbing Kakashi, dragging him down the hallway. He toggled to a camera view further down the hall to keep an eye on them, and kept trying to establish contact.
“Agent Hound! Do you copy? If you can’t answer, please respond using another method!”
He waited, tense, for Kakashi to tap some sort of morse code message against his earpiece, to make a hand signal in the direction of the cameras, anything! But his body was limp, his head lolled against his chest as the assailants dragged him deeper into the building.
“Shit,” Iruka cursed, and once more toggled to a new camera view. He watched them moving into a corridor that, damn, wasn’t in the schematics! Was it a transit space or a secret laboratory, or something worse? He wasn’t sure.
As the reinforced doors slid closed, Iruka lost visual contact on Kakashi. His suit’s transponder signal stopped broadcasting a moment later, and he was sitting there, at a computer, surrounded by monitors and the most advanced equipment on the market, completely useless.
He was just… gone. Just like that!
Meanwhile, on the monitor to his left, Mizuki was finally calling in the trouble, far too late for any backup team to make a difference.
Iruka stared numbly at the screen, still eavesdropping as mission control told Mizuki to evacuate, that they needed to regroup.
They were leaving Kakashi behind. Abandoning him.
And there was nothing Iruka could do about it.