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An ocean of sand stands between Kakashi and his goal. Golden drifts as far as the eye can see, wind whipping them to and fro, making it almost impossible to tell if the earth had been recently disturbed. Sweat is beading along his brow and collecting at the small of his back from the heat, but the panic doesn't let him register it much.
Hopelessness washes over him before he can stop it. They had never found the others. Buried beneath the sand, lost forever to the technique of the missing-nin they had been hunting.
Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro continue ahead of him, unaware of the internal battle going on in his mind. He is forever thankful for the renewed friendship between Wind and Fire, or else he would be alone out here with limited ability to look for Iruka.
Two weeks ago Tsunade had assigned him and Iruka the mission to track down a missing-nin from Sand that had been terrorizing the land of Rivers, taking people from villages and the border of Wind and Fire. They were later found mummified in coffins that had been buried alive in the deserts of Wind Country.
Iruka had been the only person available in the village at the time with the ability sense chakra, and once a high profile city official in Tani had been the latest victim, there was no choice but to hurry. The sand siblings were their contact in Wind and were supposed to be working together to find the kidnapped man, but those plans had changed once Iruka had been taken.
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The only light is the small glow from the seal Iruka had slapped to the top of the box. That he was buried in. No. Think of something else.
…
Iruka's eyes focus on the light, watching it grow dimmer, his only sense of time in the near blackness. It was really quite beautiful. The symbols for 'wind' and 'air' and 'transform' curving gracefully along the paper. He was so glad he thought to make it once he heard what their target was doing.
It's the only reason you are still alive.
Iruka shuts his eyes, tries to will his body into a meditative state, circulate and control his breathing so that he makes the best possible use of his air supply. It's about all he can do with his chakra. The cuffs around his wrists preventing him from forming any jutsu.
His arms and legs feel numb, and he doubts that he has much strength left in him. He tries to block out all the gruesome details he knows about suffocation. Focusing his meditation on the mental picture of everything he was grateful for, everything that he loves.
Naruto, his students, his friends, the Third Hokage, his Village. Kakashi? Maybe. He needed to get out of here and go on that date before he could say for sure.
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The area they are looking in is where the most number of bodies have been found. Thirteen total spread out over an area of ten square kilometers. It's a lot of area to search and their strategy has been to comb the areas where a body hasn't yet been found and let Gaara's ability search. Its slow, as they can only do small areas at a time, and they keep finding other bodies, five so far. Kakashi's pulse had spiked every time a coffin had birthed from the earth and he had to pull back the cover.
As they reach their new search grid and Gaara crouches down to place his hands on the earth, Kakashi obsessively calculates how much time Iruka has left.
He was taken the night before. All other ninja that had been taken were found with chakra suppressing cuffs. Iruka should have still been able to place the seal he had created to produce oxygen, giving him an extra 10 hours before it wore off. If he was buried in the same sized coffin, under the sand, he would have 2-3 hours without the tag. So, 12 hours minimum, assuming that Iruka didn't panic and waste oxygen.
Would he panic? Kakashi wasn't sure. Iruka was smart and capable and Kakashi would like to believe that he would keep a cool and logical head. But…
Being buried alive, knowing that your life was reduced to a countdown of hours, plus considering all the effects of suffocation…Kakashi couldn't rely on having twelve hours.
It had already been eight. And anything could have gone wrong.
What if Iruka couldn't reach the seal and apply it? What if their target took the seal from him? What if he had been already injured in the attack and bled out inside the coffin? What if their target knew they were looking for him and didn't even bury him? What if Iruka had been killed and dumped some place completely different and this was all just a waste of time?
What if the next coffin they found contained Iruka's body? What if Kakashi never got to go on the date they had planned? What if after years of working up the courage to pursue his crush, Kakashi never got to find out if they could work as a couple? If Iruka could love him the way Kakashi loved Iruka…
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Iruka wasn't sure if he had been deeply meditating or unconscious. The seal was flickering before his eyes. Last he clocked it, it was still going strong.
You faint before you die of suffocation.
His head hurt. Did his head hurt before? Did he get hit there? How did he get taken? He couldn't remember. The blue light of chakra flickered again, like a lightbulb about to die. Iruka had the urge to reach out and trace it, but his arms felt weighed down, the cuffs heavier than they should be.
The flickering was bad. He remembered. If the seal died, he died.
No more Naruto. No more teaching. He could see his class clad in black, attending his memorial. Would Naruto come back to the village to attend? What about Kakashi? Would Iruka be just another name on the memorial stone. He didn't want Kakashi to bring him funeral lilies.
Iruka tried to block out these thoughts, but they kept coming and he couldn't find the center that he had before.
With a final sputter, the seal died. A wail escaped Iruka's throat before he could stop it. The darkness and silence pressing in on him from all sides. The only sound was his panicked breaths, reducing the countdown on his life with every desperate pant.
Iruka couldn't focus. His eyes were open but he couldn't see. His heart was pounding and the pain in his head seemed to resonate with every thump until he could feel his pulse in his eyes and ears. He felt his leg twitch and spasm as his body began to fight, and it felt like all his energy was taken to raise his hands to the lid of the coffin. Fingers curling in the wood, trying to push and claw for any chance of escape.
Each breath he took felt thinner, his thoughts more jumbled until he couldn't maintain the strength to keep his hands up, letting them fall back down to his lap, barely able to feel the torn and bloody fingers.
He began to feel dizzy. His breath slowed, and it felt like he began to fall away from his body. Like his was traveling down a long tunnel and leaving behind the pain and fear.
He was going to die here.
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Above the surface, Kakashi tensed as the earth began to move, another wooden coffin erupting from the sand. It took everything in him not to sprint to it and begin to pull himself, though it was unnecessary with Gaara's technique. He would only get in the way.
Please hold on Iruka, Kakashi prayed.