Naruto, Iruka adopts everyone part the first
Long silences just mean I've been extra productive! Really! Er, yeah, so I swear I have not abandoned "(Nice Dream)" or anything, but I kind of got dared to write this and I am really weak against dares that involve hugs for sad shinobi children. Shut up, at least I have a plan for this one and it shouldn't get over 50k. ... pretty sure it won't.
Chapter Two, Chapter Three.
In this part: slight references to canon trauma/neglect, Iruka does a foolish thing but in the cutest possible way and I promise it will not end in tears, FLUFF.
1. Leaf
No one knew exactly when the cracks in Iruka had started to appear. He was a cheerful, friendly, open sort of person, but open in that way common among shinobi where the emotions that showed easily were not necessarily the ones felt, and he did work with children, a position that involved nearly as much lying, subterfuge, and manipulation as the most delicate intelligence work. For all anyone knew, it might have begun the day Uzumaki Naruto came to school with a hole in his shirt the size of a fist and said he didn't have the money for a new one. Or the day Iruka had waited with Rock Lee at the gate to the Academy for five hours before an ANBU in a boar mask had shown up to tell Lee his mother had been killed on a mission to Iwa, the body unrecoverable. Or perhaps earlier, when Iruka had survived the Kyuubi's attack while his parents died along with Lee's father and so many others, or even earlier than that, when Iruka had helped his mother in the tents of the field medics during the war by bringing water to wounded genin and chuunin no older than himself.
Everyone, however, knew that Iruka's breaking point came on the day Uchiha Sasuke showed up to class with dark hollows under his eyes, a bandage around one arm, and a note from the Hokage excusing his absence of the last week due to the tragic loss of his family and need to relocate to a single apartment.
Iruka read the note very thoroughly, and with every word his expressive face grew more and more still. As Sasuke began to slouch towards his seat, Iruka looked up from the note and said, "Thank you for bringing this in, Sasuke, but I'd still like to talk to you after school, all right?"
Sasuke glared at him, but nodded. From his seat at the back of the class Naruto scowled, muttering something under his breath, and Iruka said, "Actually, I'd like to talk to you after school too, Naruto."
"Aww, man..."
"And no whining about it!" Iruka smiled broadly at the rest of the class. "Now, let's get started - today we're going to work on -"
Of all the children in this particular Academy class, Nara Shikamaru was likely the most observant, though he rarely put the skill to much use; he still couldn't help but notice that there was something forced about Iruka's smile, which was out of the ordinary for their teacher. He passed this observation along to his best friend Chouji, who whispered, "Maybe he's just worried about Sasuke-kun - I heard all the other Uchiha got killed, it's pretty awful."
"Hn. Maybe."
True to his word, Iruka kept both Naruto and Sasuke after school, and as Shikamaru was heading out the door with Chouji he said, "Shikamaru, could you go to the next class and get a student named Rock Lee for me? I need to talk to him as well. Thank you, I really appreciate it."
Shikamaru resented the extra work, but disobeying Iruka would be even more troublesome, so he promised to meet Chouji at the candy store later and went to fetch Lee from the next classroom over.
No one but those present in the room at the time ever knew exactly what Iruka said to the three orphans that afternoon. Shikamaru was much too lazy and generally solitary to gossip, and it wasn't until several weeks later that he even thought to tell Chouji the little snippet of conversation he had overheard before opening the classroom door for Lee.
"- going to eat?"
"... I can make rice balls."
"For every single meal?"
"There's instant ramen, too, yanno! I'm real good at instant ramen!"
"Those are not proper - oh, Lee, there you are! Thank you again, Shikamaru, you can go now. And don't slack off on your homework!"
As Shikamaru had shut the door behind him, he had heard Iruka start to ask Lee something about his family, but he couldn't muster the energy to try and listen in any further. Eavesdropping on arguments like that was simply too much trouble.
Chouji's only outward reaction to this reported conversation was an expression of deep sympathy for both Sasuke and Naruto, who had clearly been living on diets of unhealthy barbecue deprivation.
---
The teller at the civilian bank branch closest to Iruka's apartment knew Iruka by sight and name, but she had never seen the three children who followed him in ten minutes before the bank was due to close. One hung back, sullen and glaring at everything in the nearly deserted building; the other two were squabbling cheerfully over some childish dispute she couldn't quite follow.
"Shimada-san, I'm sorry to come in so late," Iruka said, with an embarrassed smile, "but I'm afraid I need to close out my accounts - Naruto, quit poking Lee!"
"I'm sorry to hear that, Iruka-san," Shimada said, with a touch of genuine regret. She'd always looked forward to Iruka-san's visits; he was the least weird of the shinobi who banked with them, always polite and patient and willing to chat a little on slow days. "Is there a problem with our services?"
"No, no! I just - I'm going to need a lot of cash, I'm afraid. I've always been happy with - yes, Naruto?"
"I wanna get my money out, too!" The blond kid beamed up at Shimada, and she found herself smiling back; he had an adorably infectious smile, despite the odd scratches on his face. "We're gonna have an adventure, so I need my money, yanno, just in case!"
"What money, dumbass?" the sullen boy said.
"I got some! 'S an allowance or something. I'm real good at saving it!"
The third boy, who had strangely round eyes and glossy black hair in a long braid, said hesitantly, "Iruka-sensei, may I also withdraw my money?"
"Are you sure you want to do that, Lee?" Iruka asked, looking down at him.
"Yes!" Lee said, his voice strengthening. "It isn't much, but my mother left me all the money she had, and I want to use it to help support my new family!"
"That - that's very thoughtful of you," Iruka said, "though I hope it won't be necessary..." He turned back to Shimada. "It seems like we'll all be making withdrawals - I hope it isn't too much trouble."
"Not at all, Iruka-san," she said, squashing all thoughts of the paperwork she'd have to do before she could go home that night. "Why don't we start with your accounts?"
As they talked, Naruto grinned at Lee and said, "Hey, you're pretty cool after all, fuzzy-eyebrows!"
"You - really think so?"
"Yeah! That was a cool thing to say, yanno?"
The sullen boy hmphed, but after Lee and Naruto had gotten their turns at scrawling on the forms that would close out their accounts and received their ryo - a pitifully small amount for Naruto, a decent sum for Lee - he too stepped up to withdraw some money from an account that had so many zeroes in it Shimada had trouble breathing for a moment. "But I'm not closing mine," he told her with a ferocious scowl. "I just need some for now."
"All right, ah - Sasuke-kun," she said, glancing down at the neat signature, and handed him his ryo as quickly as possible. She didn't know what such an unpleasant child was doing with Iruka-san and the other perfectly nice boys.
As Iruka herded them to the door, telling Naruto not now, he could count it up later, Shimada called after him, "Good luck, Iruka-san!"
He waved back at her, and with the memory of his warm smile lingering in her mind, she resigned herself to a little overtime.
---
When Iruka, Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee failed to appear at the Academy the next morning, the first places to be investigated were their apartments. Sasuke's apartment was as empty and bare as if it had never been lived in, even for the day he had spent in it; Naruto's contained only a few bits of worn or too-small clothing, a half-drunk carton of expired milk in the refrigerator, and the lingering smell of old ramen; Lee's was nearly as empty as Sasuke's, save for a battered training dummy and a broken hairbrush.
In Iruka's apartment, the investigating jounin found a slightly worn forehead protector and a note on the low table in the living room, the latter addressed to the Hokage:
I, Umino Iruka, formally resign from my position as a teacher at the Konoha Ninja Academy, and from the ranks of the active shinobi. I am also taking custody of the orphans Rock Lee, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto, and I will raise, train, and provide for them to the best of my ability. Although I have decided to leave Konoha to give us all a fresh start, I swear that none of us will ever raise a hand to harm the village or the Land of Fire, or to aid its enemies. Please let all my students know that I'll miss them very much, but this is the course I've decided to take, and I hope that they will all work hard to become great shinobi of the Leaf.
In a slightly shakier hand was written, I never wanted to disappoint you, Hokage-sama. I just can't let these children grow up as alone as I did. I'm sorry, and I hope you can understand; I will always be grateful to you, and Konoha will always be my home, but I have to do this.
The village council and the Hokage argued behind closed doors for a day and a half, while the on-duty ANBU made idle bets as to how long it would take to track down a mediocre chuunin teacher hauling around three kids. Almost all of them were shocked when the Hokage announced that while Umino Iruka would be greatly missed, his decision to leave Konoha would be respected and he would not be marked down as a missing-nin. None of them, however, were surprised when the Hokage added that in the interest of safety - Iruka and the children's, of course - it would be for the best if no word of this situation escaped the village. Ever. And particularly not the disappearance of either Uzumaki Naruto or Uchiha Sasuke, due to reasons which unfortunately could not be disclosed at the present time.
Intra-village gossip could not be stopped, however, and there was talk for weeks about how Iruka had always seemed so nice, such a hard-working young man, who would have thought he had it in him? Really, young shinobi these days, no wonder he'd never made jounin... Lee, sadly, was little missed, as few people beyond Iruka had ever taken note of him; the loss of Naruto caused more than one discreet but relieved drinking party, as various chuunin and ANBU members celebrated never having to clean up after his pranks again, and a few for less mentionable reasons. As for Sasuke, there was a brief mourning period among the girls of his class, but the new teacher assigned to the class kept them all too busy for much more than the occasional sigh.
"It's still a shame, though," Yamanaka Ino was overheard whispering to her new best friend, Haruno Sakura, "that Sasuke was the only cool guy in class - everyone else is, like, a real loser!"
"I - I guess..."
"Well, we'll just have to stick together and be the coolest people here, right?" Ino said, and she was rewarded with Sakura's brightest smile, which drove all nascent thoughts of boys right out of Ino's head.
Iruka, of course, remained completely unaware of the general amnesty, which was just as well; not an hour after the Hokage's announcement that Iruka and the children were to be left alone, in a secret room deep with ANBU headquarters, Shimura Danzo was giving very different orders to a group of people who were not supposed to exist.
"I want them all found and brought back to Konoha as soon as possible," he said. "Without attracting that fool Sarutobi's attention. And Uchiha Sasuke most of all."
Naruto, characters, etc. © Kishimoto who will be the actual fucking death of me, DID YOU SEE THAT BABY MADARA FACE.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/181690.html .
Chapter Two, Chapter Three.
In this part: slight references to canon trauma/neglect, Iruka does a foolish thing but in the cutest possible way and I promise it will not end in tears, FLUFF.
1. Leaf
No one knew exactly when the cracks in Iruka had started to appear. He was a cheerful, friendly, open sort of person, but open in that way common among shinobi where the emotions that showed easily were not necessarily the ones felt, and he did work with children, a position that involved nearly as much lying, subterfuge, and manipulation as the most delicate intelligence work. For all anyone knew, it might have begun the day Uzumaki Naruto came to school with a hole in his shirt the size of a fist and said he didn't have the money for a new one. Or the day Iruka had waited with Rock Lee at the gate to the Academy for five hours before an ANBU in a boar mask had shown up to tell Lee his mother had been killed on a mission to Iwa, the body unrecoverable. Or perhaps earlier, when Iruka had survived the Kyuubi's attack while his parents died along with Lee's father and so many others, or even earlier than that, when Iruka had helped his mother in the tents of the field medics during the war by bringing water to wounded genin and chuunin no older than himself.
Everyone, however, knew that Iruka's breaking point came on the day Uchiha Sasuke showed up to class with dark hollows under his eyes, a bandage around one arm, and a note from the Hokage excusing his absence of the last week due to the tragic loss of his family and need to relocate to a single apartment.
Iruka read the note very thoroughly, and with every word his expressive face grew more and more still. As Sasuke began to slouch towards his seat, Iruka looked up from the note and said, "Thank you for bringing this in, Sasuke, but I'd still like to talk to you after school, all right?"
Sasuke glared at him, but nodded. From his seat at the back of the class Naruto scowled, muttering something under his breath, and Iruka said, "Actually, I'd like to talk to you after school too, Naruto."
"Aww, man..."
"And no whining about it!" Iruka smiled broadly at the rest of the class. "Now, let's get started - today we're going to work on -"
Of all the children in this particular Academy class, Nara Shikamaru was likely the most observant, though he rarely put the skill to much use; he still couldn't help but notice that there was something forced about Iruka's smile, which was out of the ordinary for their teacher. He passed this observation along to his best friend Chouji, who whispered, "Maybe he's just worried about Sasuke-kun - I heard all the other Uchiha got killed, it's pretty awful."
"Hn. Maybe."
True to his word, Iruka kept both Naruto and Sasuke after school, and as Shikamaru was heading out the door with Chouji he said, "Shikamaru, could you go to the next class and get a student named Rock Lee for me? I need to talk to him as well. Thank you, I really appreciate it."
Shikamaru resented the extra work, but disobeying Iruka would be even more troublesome, so he promised to meet Chouji at the candy store later and went to fetch Lee from the next classroom over.
No one but those present in the room at the time ever knew exactly what Iruka said to the three orphans that afternoon. Shikamaru was much too lazy and generally solitary to gossip, and it wasn't until several weeks later that he even thought to tell Chouji the little snippet of conversation he had overheard before opening the classroom door for Lee.
"- going to eat?"
"... I can make rice balls."
"For every single meal?"
"There's instant ramen, too, yanno! I'm real good at instant ramen!"
"Those are not proper - oh, Lee, there you are! Thank you again, Shikamaru, you can go now. And don't slack off on your homework!"
As Shikamaru had shut the door behind him, he had heard Iruka start to ask Lee something about his family, but he couldn't muster the energy to try and listen in any further. Eavesdropping on arguments like that was simply too much trouble.
Chouji's only outward reaction to this reported conversation was an expression of deep sympathy for both Sasuke and Naruto, who had clearly been living on diets of unhealthy barbecue deprivation.
---
The teller at the civilian bank branch closest to Iruka's apartment knew Iruka by sight and name, but she had never seen the three children who followed him in ten minutes before the bank was due to close. One hung back, sullen and glaring at everything in the nearly deserted building; the other two were squabbling cheerfully over some childish dispute she couldn't quite follow.
"Shimada-san, I'm sorry to come in so late," Iruka said, with an embarrassed smile, "but I'm afraid I need to close out my accounts - Naruto, quit poking Lee!"
"I'm sorry to hear that, Iruka-san," Shimada said, with a touch of genuine regret. She'd always looked forward to Iruka-san's visits; he was the least weird of the shinobi who banked with them, always polite and patient and willing to chat a little on slow days. "Is there a problem with our services?"
"No, no! I just - I'm going to need a lot of cash, I'm afraid. I've always been happy with - yes, Naruto?"
"I wanna get my money out, too!" The blond kid beamed up at Shimada, and she found herself smiling back; he had an adorably infectious smile, despite the odd scratches on his face. "We're gonna have an adventure, so I need my money, yanno, just in case!"
"What money, dumbass?" the sullen boy said.
"I got some! 'S an allowance or something. I'm real good at saving it!"
The third boy, who had strangely round eyes and glossy black hair in a long braid, said hesitantly, "Iruka-sensei, may I also withdraw my money?"
"Are you sure you want to do that, Lee?" Iruka asked, looking down at him.
"Yes!" Lee said, his voice strengthening. "It isn't much, but my mother left me all the money she had, and I want to use it to help support my new family!"
"That - that's very thoughtful of you," Iruka said, "though I hope it won't be necessary..." He turned back to Shimada. "It seems like we'll all be making withdrawals - I hope it isn't too much trouble."
"Not at all, Iruka-san," she said, squashing all thoughts of the paperwork she'd have to do before she could go home that night. "Why don't we start with your accounts?"
As they talked, Naruto grinned at Lee and said, "Hey, you're pretty cool after all, fuzzy-eyebrows!"
"You - really think so?"
"Yeah! That was a cool thing to say, yanno?"
The sullen boy hmphed, but after Lee and Naruto had gotten their turns at scrawling on the forms that would close out their accounts and received their ryo - a pitifully small amount for Naruto, a decent sum for Lee - he too stepped up to withdraw some money from an account that had so many zeroes in it Shimada had trouble breathing for a moment. "But I'm not closing mine," he told her with a ferocious scowl. "I just need some for now."
"All right, ah - Sasuke-kun," she said, glancing down at the neat signature, and handed him his ryo as quickly as possible. She didn't know what such an unpleasant child was doing with Iruka-san and the other perfectly nice boys.
As Iruka herded them to the door, telling Naruto not now, he could count it up later, Shimada called after him, "Good luck, Iruka-san!"
He waved back at her, and with the memory of his warm smile lingering in her mind, she resigned herself to a little overtime.
---
When Iruka, Sasuke, Naruto, and Lee failed to appear at the Academy the next morning, the first places to be investigated were their apartments. Sasuke's apartment was as empty and bare as if it had never been lived in, even for the day he had spent in it; Naruto's contained only a few bits of worn or too-small clothing, a half-drunk carton of expired milk in the refrigerator, and the lingering smell of old ramen; Lee's was nearly as empty as Sasuke's, save for a battered training dummy and a broken hairbrush.
In Iruka's apartment, the investigating jounin found a slightly worn forehead protector and a note on the low table in the living room, the latter addressed to the Hokage:
I, Umino Iruka, formally resign from my position as a teacher at the Konoha Ninja Academy, and from the ranks of the active shinobi. I am also taking custody of the orphans Rock Lee, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto, and I will raise, train, and provide for them to the best of my ability. Although I have decided to leave Konoha to give us all a fresh start, I swear that none of us will ever raise a hand to harm the village or the Land of Fire, or to aid its enemies. Please let all my students know that I'll miss them very much, but this is the course I've decided to take, and I hope that they will all work hard to become great shinobi of the Leaf.
In a slightly shakier hand was written, I never wanted to disappoint you, Hokage-sama. I just can't let these children grow up as alone as I did. I'm sorry, and I hope you can understand; I will always be grateful to you, and Konoha will always be my home, but I have to do this.
The village council and the Hokage argued behind closed doors for a day and a half, while the on-duty ANBU made idle bets as to how long it would take to track down a mediocre chuunin teacher hauling around three kids. Almost all of them were shocked when the Hokage announced that while Umino Iruka would be greatly missed, his decision to leave Konoha would be respected and he would not be marked down as a missing-nin. None of them, however, were surprised when the Hokage added that in the interest of safety - Iruka and the children's, of course - it would be for the best if no word of this situation escaped the village. Ever. And particularly not the disappearance of either Uzumaki Naruto or Uchiha Sasuke, due to reasons which unfortunately could not be disclosed at the present time.
Intra-village gossip could not be stopped, however, and there was talk for weeks about how Iruka had always seemed so nice, such a hard-working young man, who would have thought he had it in him? Really, young shinobi these days, no wonder he'd never made jounin... Lee, sadly, was little missed, as few people beyond Iruka had ever taken note of him; the loss of Naruto caused more than one discreet but relieved drinking party, as various chuunin and ANBU members celebrated never having to clean up after his pranks again, and a few for less mentionable reasons. As for Sasuke, there was a brief mourning period among the girls of his class, but the new teacher assigned to the class kept them all too busy for much more than the occasional sigh.
"It's still a shame, though," Yamanaka Ino was overheard whispering to her new best friend, Haruno Sakura, "that Sasuke was the only cool guy in class - everyone else is, like, a real loser!"
"I - I guess..."
"Well, we'll just have to stick together and be the coolest people here, right?" Ino said, and she was rewarded with Sakura's brightest smile, which drove all nascent thoughts of boys right out of Ino's head.
Iruka, of course, remained completely unaware of the general amnesty, which was just as well; not an hour after the Hokage's announcement that Iruka and the children were to be left alone, in a secret room deep with ANBU headquarters, Shimura Danzo was giving very different orders to a group of people who were not supposed to exist.
"I want them all found and brought back to Konoha as soon as possible," he said. "Without attracting that fool Sarutobi's attention. And Uchiha Sasuke most of all."
Naruto, characters, etc. © Kishimoto who will be the actual fucking death of me, DID YOU SEE THAT BABY MADARA FACE.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth - read the original post here: http://brief-transit.dreamwidth.org/181690.html .