Dancing In The Dark

Training

Melissa thought Iruka was out of his mind when he put a sword in her hands and told her he was going to teach her how to fight.  Sarah's incident had obviously spooked him and he was determined that she would be able to protect herself.  She thought it was kind of pointless because it was Team 7 that they were after, not them.  She looked at him dubiously.

"Come on, Melissa, you are small which means you are quick.  And... I just got a feeling that you'll be a master with the sword."

"What if I hurt you on accident?"

Iruka chuckled, "I've been teaching for how long?  Trust me if Naruto didn't kill me, you won't.  Now hold the handle like I showed you and let's do this."

She was sweating profusely an hour later but she had to admit, it felt good using that sword.  She liked the way it made her feel strong and powerful.  Iruka had commented on how quickly she was picking it up.  That made her feel good.  She grinned at him.

"That was fun," she said.

"Now kunai..."

"Seriously?  Do you not see how much sweat I'm dripping?"

"It's getting out any toxins you have," he chuckled.  "Come on, two hours a day and you'll be a master.  You've got a natural talent, Melissa.  I'm curious really as to how you handle the kunai."

Iruka was impressed as he watched her.  She had an almost... feel for the weapons.  He suspected that with just a little time, she would be so good with the sword that she would be a force to be reckoned with.  He was wondering if he shouldn't look into getting her with a master of the sword.  She was pretty handsy with the kunai as well.  He narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Are you sure you've never done this before?"

Melissa laughed, "When would I have had time?  I told you I used to have to work all the time.  Sarah and I barely scraped by.  Learning how to sword fight and throw kunai was not something I would have had time for."  She sighed heavily, "Iruka... You have no idea how tired we would be when we weren't working. This is the most relaxed I've been my entire life.  I feel sorta spoiled actually."

Iruka moved towards her and wrapped her in his arms.  He kissed the top of her head.  "You deserve to be a little spoiled."

"Iruka... who do you think is targeting Team 7?  It's just a little odd that after all this time someone shows up to do them in."

"Hmm," he thought for a long moment.  "It's hard to say.  It has to be someone they encountered around the war or just before then.  Since they have Yamato and Sai on their agenda.  There were so many missions they were sent on, it could literally be anyone.  It doesn't bode well that they have no qualms of messing with Naruto and Sasuke.  They're the two strongest Shinobi of our lifetime."

"Kakashi too..." she said softly.  "He's a force to be reckoned with too."

Iruka nodded his head in agreement, "All of them are actually.  I'm glad that we are not a target because out of all of them, I'm the weakest."

Melissa stiffened, "The hell you are.  You're a lot stronger of a fighter than you think.  I've seen you, remember?  You just haven't been able to unleash like them because you took a step back to teach the kids."

"Your faith in me is astounding," Iruka responded with a smile.

"That's it, we are going to start to watch the show tonight," Melissa said as she leaned back to look up at him.  "So maybe you'll see what I saw."

Iruka laughed, "Do you have any idea how weird that will be?"

"You know... we might actually find a clue as to who is after Team 7 in those shows..." Melissa said with wide eyes.  "Damn, why didn't I think of that before?  I'm calling Sarah and getting her to bring Kakashi over.  Something in there should give us a clue."

Iruka lowered his head, "Oh man... this is going to be so weird."

A couple of hours later, Kakashi and Sarah showed up at their home.  Kakashi looked about as excited to be watching the show as Iruka.  A group of Ninja hounds were with them and spread out about the property as they went inside.

Sarah curled her legs under her as she sat on the couch next to Kakashi and leaned against him.  She looked at Melissa, "I hate to say it but lets skip to Shippūden.  I would love for these two to watch the whole thing but that would take weeks."

"We also have the movies to go through..." Melissa reminded her.  "It could be someone or something from one of those too."

"True... Let's go through Shippūden first then go through the movies."  Sarah grinned, "It's still going to take days to get through them all."

"Maybe a week," Melissa agreed.

Both men groaned, "Seriously?"

"We can't skip around," Melissa chastised them.  "Even in the fillers, the villain might be in them.  We can't take the chance that we'll miss something."

Sarah covered her mouth, trying hard to not laugh.  There were some fillers she was certain that they could skip but Melissa finally had both men trapped and she was going to get her way.  She'd been daydreaming about it since she packed those DVDs and player before coming to the Leaf.  She was not going to ruin her friend's fun because she was really interested in seeing if it might change Kakashi's perspective of himself.  It wasn't like they had a whole lot else to do and they were probably safer in the city than at their home.

As Melissa quickly popped in the first disk, she hurried back over to where Iruka was sitting and snuggled in with him.  She was almost rubbing her hands together in anticipation.  Sarah had watched the show at least a dozen times but as always, she was sucked in.  Kakashi was absently stroking her arm.  Neither of them had told anyone that they were expecting yet.  They had decided it was safer for all concerned if they kept that to themselves for the time being.

Melissa snickered a few hours later as the two men were talking about the show rather animatedly.  They had not pinpointed who might be stalking Team 7, but it did bring up some rather interesting conversations.  Sarah almost had to drag Kakashi away to go home when she started yawning and was ready for bed.

"We'll be back until we get through the entire series," Kakashi said on his way out the door.

Iruka was silent as Melissa shut the door and leaned back against it.  He finally looked at her and grinned a little, "Okay, I admit that was interesting."

"I really think in one of these disks, we're going to get the answer," Melissa said.  "I just... feel it."