(fic) Lunar Mage, Chapter 3
It is thoroughly amazing. I am here, one and a half hours from civilisation (ie my own computer), after the *worse* two weeks in my entire academic career, suffering from mild sleep deprivation due to being an experiment in my own fieldtrip report that I'm supposed to hand in *one* miserable week, and I have finished a chapter of Lunar Mage.
Be grateful people! :D
Thanks to all those who replied, even those who were anonymous. Thank you so much! It made my day. My week even. So... I really like your suggestions, but remember I am not driving the story - Itachi and Iruka and Kakashi and everyone else are. I'm just writing them.
But what I wouldn't give to get an Iruka sandwich!
On to the chapter!
Edit: How come no one's seemed to notice the incoherence of the first paragraph? LJ is screwing around with my stuff!
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3: The Teams
Iruka dozed off against Shino, despite his wariness of the strange healer. Iruka's family stayed on the very outskirts of the territory held by the Fire Group - at least two whole days' walk from the head quarters - and Iruka had been several hours from home when Itachi had caught up with him. This meant a day's journey back on horseback, with the group being so big and going at a slow pace.
Shino dealt with Iruka while they were riding; Iruka found himself waking to a smaller, but poisonously bright red spider nipping his shoulder. This time the pain from the bite was more like needles, or bee stings, and the accumulating stiffness was dispersed again. Iruka himself was too sleepy to react more than moan lightly before falling asleep again.
The next time Iruka woke, he was curled on a thin blanket under a tree; Itachi's Team was gathered around, but slightly to the side from him, Shino manipulating a mass of ants on Aoba leg. Iruka blinked sleepily around and saw Hatake's Team further off, on the opposite side. He caught Hatake's intense and speculative gaze, and hastily dropped his eyes, feeling both hot and cold. Shino came by again, this time with a water-bag and another poisonous looking insect - a wasp. Iruka sipped the leathery water, endured the sting of the wasp and drifted off again, not quite feeling Itachi's arms lifting him onto Shino's horse when they set off again.
They stopped several times, as short as possible, along the way. Both Teams might not have suffered casualties, but there had been injuries. Perhaps it was in an effort not to appear weakened in front of the other Team, or just that this class of injuries were normal in Team missions, that none of the Team members asked for the services of their healers. It was only when the Team Leaders called for a halt before both Shino and Genma went among their Team and treated their wounds.
When Iruka could keep his eyes open more than a few minutes, they were just less than a day from the Fire Group Head Quarters. He wondered idly whether Shino, and by extension, Itachi, had been drugging him to keep him pliant through most of the journey back. A sort of lingering fuzziness dulled his anger to a faint irritabily.
He tested his arm - it was no longer stiff. It appeared that Shino's various multi-legged creatures had done their work well.
A slight noise from his right made him look up. Genma looked down at him emotionlessly.
"Whad -" Iruka swallowed his thick words, and tried again. "What do you want?"
"Yes, what do you want?"
Shino was crouched quietly on Iruka's left, dark shades glimmering in the evening light, motionless like a praying-mantis.
Genma's eyes shifted from Iruka to Shino for a fraction of a second, but spoke to him, not Shino. "Bandages. Kakashi-sama said to check on your wounds."
"He's my patient." His voice was dry, papery, a whisper of locust wings.
The three of them made a strange tableau, Iruka decided. It looked as though Genma and Shino were about to repeat the glaring match between Hatake and Itachi - only Genma was like an icy green and brown statue, regarding Iruka with a cold patience only matched by the ancient forests, and Shino had gone as still as a black-widow.
"I think Itachi said something about the Hokage deciding?" Iruka put forth tentatively. All the tension around him was making him extremely uncomfortable.
"True," Genma murmured. And waited.
Shino stayed still for another long moment, before nodding slightly and moving away some distance. But he stayed within easy attack range, watchful and still.
"Thought that I wasn't your Team?" Iruka muttered, as Genma undid the old bandages, and prodded at the wound, now closed to a small circle of shiny red skin.
Genma merely looked at him, and pressed a finger to the wound. Iruka yelped at the shock of pain, glaring mutinously at the cold Healer, and Shino stirred dangerously in the background, but otherwise did not react.
"I do what Kakashi-sama orders me to do." The Healer retrieved a wide-rimmed vial from a pocket, and delicately smeared a fingertip of ivory cream across the scar. "You would do well to remember that."
"All of you people seem to be mindlessly following someone else," Iruka said, then bit his lip at his audacity.
Genma looked at him, gaze unperturbed. He tied a light bandage on the wound, not as tightly this time.
"Be grateful." He said, standing up.
"For what?" Iruka said, trying to sound uncaring, but his palms chilled at the icy look in Genma's eyes. "For healing me? Wouldn't that be because 'Kakashi-sama' said so?"
"That you aren't in our Team yet." The Healer folded the excess bandages into a neat square and tucked them into a pouch. His gaze sharpened on Iruka, and for the first time, Iruka realised that this man was a killer. "I don't tolerate insubordination."
He then exchanged glances with Shino - like a Healer to another, or a tiger at the edge of its territory regarding its neighbour - and departed.
Shino was at his side, helping him up. Although his shoulder didn't hurt, nor was it stiff or aching, somehow Iruka was wobbly on his feet. The other man supported him while he swayed, and Iruka bit back the thoughts that Shino knew that he would be feeling dizzy - and it had to be those insects!
He said nothing though. While he was irrationally fearless, rambling when he was with Genma or Itachi, the rest of the Teams scared him. Perhaps it was the way Hatake's Team kept looking at him - only Hatake's word keeping them from pouncing, and the way none of Itachi's Team talked to him at all. Just the quiet intense regard, isolating him in a tiny suffocating bubble of terror. Iruka vaguely felt the urge to ask Shino to drug him back to sleep. When he was asleep, he couldn't think or feel. And he certainly couldn't babble at dangerous people and offend them and risk getting death threats.
"Iruka-chan."
Iruka looked up to find that Itachi was holding his other arm. He winced mentally - if Genma and Shino hadn't healed it...
Shino melted away to the rest of the Team, leaving Iruka and Itachi alone.
"Eat, Iruka-chan." Itachi held out a piece of thoroughly unappetizing travel-meat. Iruka looked at the pale red lump, and shook his head mutely.
A hand grabbed his jaw and pressed harshly, painfully forcing Iruka's mouth open, and shoving the lump in.
"Eat it, Iruka-chan." Itachi's voice was steely-sweet, promising more pain.
Iruka glared at Itachi's chilly and amused regard, and chewed, wincing at the ache in his jaw and the horrible taste in his mouth.
"That's better, Iruka-chan," Itachi said, smirk in his voice. "Have to keep your strength up for tonight."
Iruka nearly choked on the meat.
"Already bedding the boy, Uchiha?" Hatake's voice was low and malicious. "Not really surprising, since he's got quite the pretty face."
This time Iruka did choke.
"Jealous, Hatake?" Itachi smirked, hand curled possessively around Iruka's waist as he coughed raggedly. Iruka pushed weakly at Itachi, but the arm merely tightened, pulling him against the older man's body.
Hatake's gaze tightened, but his dangerous smile stayed. "Let's press on, shall we? We do want to get this settled soon."
Itachi grinned savagely back. "Sure, Hatake. Anything you say."
True to their word, the Team Leaders pushed the group's pace. They rode hard through the night, and rested only two hours, with the Teams napping while their Leaders kept watch on both their surroundings and each other.
Having slept for several hours already, Iruka only pretended to sleep in Itachi's bedroll, thinking.
Actually, using Itachi's bedroll was not a comforting thought at all.
Now that things were not so rushed, Iruka found the blank wall that was keeping his emotions at bay gone.
Grief and anger swept through him; Father was dead, and he wasn't ever going to see him again.
He hated himself.
A snide voice insinuated itself in his mind. It must have been *you*. They wanted you, so they let your father die... *You* got him killed.
True - if he hadn't worked for the Fire Group at all, they wouldn't have noticed him, would they? And what was to prevent them from setting up a headstrong independant powerful Lunar mage to die, when there was a young, inexperienced boy, just perfect for controlling, for brainwashing...
Iruka found himself upright and screaming, tears streaming down his cheeks. Make it a dream, I want Father, Mother... Has to be a *dream*.
There was a stinging pain across his face, but he couldn't stop screaming.
On his edge of awareness, he heard Mizuki grumble irritably about Damn stupid kids, and Itachi curtly ordering Shino to shut him up, which Shino did.
Both Teams moved out even before the boy's cries were cut off by one of Shino's insects. While they were close to the head quarters, there could still be enemies willing to try for the boy. Or other Teams eager enough to challenge for him.
Neither Itachi nor Hatake were willing to chance more competitors.
Iruka was still unconscious when they reached the head quarters, and Shino had to hand the boy off to Itachi before he could dismount.
Itachi merely looked over Iruka's dark head and smirked into Kakashi's stormy eye, before heading to the Hokage's office, Kakashi just a step behind. The two Teams regarded each other with a cold and stony silence, stabling the horses and supplies, doing their best to ignore the others as they assembled in the large open training yard, silently awaiting further orders in the the cool dawn.
"This is the boy?" The Hokage looked up from under his widebrimmed hat, dark eyes smoldering in the smoke wafting from his long pipe.
Itachi nodded, and handed the Hokage a scroll, easily shifting Iruka's slight weight to one arm. The boy was small, and had not hit his growth spurt yet.
The Hokage grunted, reading the scroll, then putting it aside.
"Shino's work."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
Iruka shifted in his sleep, murmuring something, and burrowed deeper into the crook of Itachi's arm. Kakashi neutral eyes narrowed a moment, then the glare was gone, but the Hokage's sharp eyes caught it.
"Kakashi." The Hokage looked at the silver-haired Team Leader. "You want something."
"Yes, Hokage-sama." Kakashi looked straight ahead, eyes flat. "I challenge for the Lunar mage."
"Ah," The Hokage leant back in his chair, watching Kakashi's flat-eyed gaze, the banked fire in Itachi's, and allowed a faint smile to flit across his shadowed face. "What reasons do you have? Itachi did get the boy first."
"My Team had to come in to help Itachi-san's when they were attacked. The boy would have been lost otherwise."
The Hokage's pipe glowed slightly, thin pungent smoke rising steadily. Time flickered past in long seconds and leaping flame.
"Itachi-san also let the boy run about loose - he got injured in the fight and delayed the return journey."
The Hokage's dark eyes probed at both Hatake and Itachi, black gaze inscrutable.
"Itachi. Is there any truth to Kakashi's words."
Itachi glared stonily at the wall behind him, arms tightening slightly around the boy. "There were forty-eight assailants, Hokage-sama, and twenty-nine of them were lower Fu and above. It is doubtful that any one Team would have been able to fend them off successfully."
Again the silence in flickering flame.
"I see." The Hokage leaned forward again, sharp eyes shifted between the two Team Leaders, and rested briefly on the sleeping form of the boy curled in Itachi's arms. "You take responsibility for the boy nearly getting taken by," he glanced at one of the numerous scroll, "the Water Group."
Itachi audibly drew in a breath, but his voice was steady. "If he were in my Team, then yes I would, Hokage-sama."
The Hokage drew aside his pipe, and concentrating his dense and heavy regard on Itachi and Kakashi.
"Then make sure the boy is suitably punished for it - there will be nothing more on the matter." The pipe smoked lazily. "Both you and Kakashi will train the boy; he will go on missions with both Teams, but officially he is under Itachi. Sort out the training yourselves. Dismissed."
The two Team Leaders bowed their heads a fraction, and left the office.
The boy was stirring in Itachi's arms when both the Team Leaders were about five metres from their Teams.
Hatake's icy glare shot to the boy, and narrowed at Itachi's smirk.
"He's in my Team now, Hatake," Itachi said, taunting.
Hatake was saved from saying something cutting when the boy murmured, "Father..." and smiled sleepily, nuzzling Itachi, eyes fluttering open. Both Team Leaders stopped, staring.
Then Iruka's eyes snapped open, with a sharp gasp.
And stabbed Itachi with a shard of ice.
It was almost humorous, the way Uchiha's Team immediately reacted to the boy's attack, Kakashi thought with cold detached amusement. Sasuke and Shino were at Uchiha's side immediately, the healer drawing out his numerous insects, Sasuke snapping out orders to take care of the kid, while Mizuki and Aoba both tackled the hysterical child, probably preventing him from causing more damage to himself, Mizuki snapping a water-shield up, because what little water there was in the ground and the air was collapsing into eel-like threads and deadly ice needles.
The boy was admittedly impressive, in terms of raw potential, Kakashi mused,throwing a sharp glare at Kurenai. She was thrumming at the sight of Uchiha's blood, fingers twitching at towards her twin short-blades, but subsided at Kakashi's look.
If this was merely the watermagic the boy wielded, the lunar powers the boy possessed could well be immense. Even considering the possibility that his lunar powers were miniscule, the combined powers would be definitely worth it. Kakashi smiled.
"So what was Hokage-sama's decision, Kakashi-sama?" Kakashi did not have to turn to know it was Genma, his second. His quiet turn of voice was unmistakable, the disinterested tone undeniable.
"We share the boy," Kakashi said coolly, watching Iruka struggle to throw off Aoba's dogged attempts to restrain him with hastily conjured hemp-ropes. The boy's screams were decreasing as he started to hyperventilate. Classic reaction to extreme stress, Kakashi supposed. "He will be on Uchiha's payroll, but will go on missions with us as well."
Other Teams were starting to take interest in the ruckus, and began drifting over with deadly non-chalance. Kakashi could spot Maito, his black hair gleaming, as he and his Team slid around the edge to witness Uchiha's humilation. Unfortunately, Uchiha was already taking steps to silence the boy. He waved off Shino and Sasuke and waked through Mizuki's shield, and backhanded the boy. Hard.
The animated water objects dropped and evaporated before they hit the ground, and the boy just stared at Uchiha with wide, wide blank eyes.
Uchiha looked fit to kill; which was why Kakashi chose to prowl up at that moment.
"Maybe the boy doesn't take to your Team, Uchiha?" he purred.
"We'll just be going and getting the latest addition to *my* team settled," Uchiha snarled out, and yanked up the boy by his arm. The boy turned frightened startled eyes to Uchiha, and they were just as fear-filled when they looked at him. Kakashi allowed himself a smirk, and the boy's wide eyes widened further.
The child was scared of the both of them.
They were on an equal footing then.
"Don't forget his punishment, then, Uchiha." Kakashi smiled, his finger trailing down the boy's face, and the boy whimpered, trying to squirm away from both Kakashi and Uchiha. "Unless you're too soft-hearted to bruise his pretty skin?"
"And no doubt you would be happy to take over," Uchiha growled. "Hokage-sama gave him to *me*."
"Ah." Kakashi's hand tightened on the boy's jaw, and he slanted a look at the rage in Uchiha's eyes. "He gave him to *both* of us, Uchiha. He is *mine* as well."
The boy opened his mouth, but was silenced by Uchiha's stern glare. Kakashi was pleased. The boy could be trained, but the fun to be had training him!
"I'll discuss training schedules *tomorrow*, Hatake," Uchiha gritted out. "Now if you don't mind?"
Kakashi smirked, and let go. Uchiha glared at him, and he and his Team left in the direction of their rooms.
"The boy is going to be a handful," Genma observed detachedly.
"Yes," Kakashi said, and smiled.
On to Chapter 4