I do not in anyway claim to own Naruto or any of the characters connected to the show/manga. This was simply writen for my own enjoyment.

Sea creatures

The shore was just as he wanted it. The sea was roaring, waves crashing in on it and pulling back leaving behind bits and pieces of some unfortunate ship whose captain had dared to challenge the power of the sea's temper.

He started to walk down the hill towards the shore, he wanted… no; he needed to be closer to the water. The closer he got the more he felt it's calling, the water was like a lighthouse drawing him towards it and leading him home.

The clouds that had dominated the heavens for days finally let go of their blessed cargo, letting it fall down on the too dry lands below. He could feel the raindrops fall on his head and face; it was slowly making his horsetail glue itself to the nape of his neck, causing it to lead the water down his spine. It didn't bother him, as he had no desire to stay dry.

At last he was at the breaking line of the waves and the rain had reached an almost painful level of intensity, when the first sounds of thunder rolled across the skies. He stopped and thought of the youngest students in their beds, probably shaking when faced with the gods' anger or what they thought was the anger of the gods… Maybe he'll teach them about thunderstorms on Monday, but was only a brief thought. At the moment, the sea was more important.

He stepped right out into the roaring chaos that was the sea without caring to take off his uniform. As he the water embraced him he felt all his worries flow away with the waves. When he had walked so far out that the water, so that the lows between waves reached his chest, he smiled as he felt the currents sweep him of his feet and drag him down. Had Kakashi seen him now he probably would be pulling his hair or be struggling to get him out of the sea, mumbling something about stupid chuunins and their suicidal habits mixed in with various profanities.

Such fools they were, believing even for a second that he, with a name like Umino, would meet his end in the sea. Even if the symbolism would be quite amusing… "From ashes to ashes" became instead "from water to water", it really was quite hilarious, but he suspected he alone found it so.

He had been under water sometime now and the joy that was filling his heart and mind was almost unbearable and became more and more intense the further out and deeper the currents took him.

And finally came the pain, the pain that ripped through his lungs and throat and the feeling of his chakra pushing itself toward his neck, completely out of his control, opening his beloved and cursed gills. He took a deep breath, or the equivalent of one, and felt how oxygen flowed through his arteries to his starved cells, which had painfully protested against his treatment of them.

If some would have asked him to describe the bliss he felt, he would not have been able to do so, the feeling of being what his clan had born to be, a creature of the sea, was simply indescribable. If it weren't for all things connecting him to Konoha, the ties of emotions for the people he knew. The love and companionship he felt in the city, he would have moved to the brink of the ocean and created himself a small family. A proper family with a quiet and sincere wife, children who would be as much Umino as him, children who would be able to join him in the sea during stormy nights when on one could see.

But creating a family, or at least a "proper" one with children of his own, meant leaving Naruto behind. For the boy would refuse to leave Konoha until he had proven himself in the eyes of the villagers and it would be difficult to find a woman willing to take Naruto in, not only as a orphan with no visual connections to her husband, but also because he is the container of the Kyuubi.

It also meant leaving Kakashi behind… And he knew that he never would be able to completely leave the other man; the man had somehow gotten through all the obstacles he had placed in his way and, in the end the lazy catlike jounin had, made himself at home in Iruka's heart. No, he wouldn't leave Kakashi no matter how much he wanted children…And he hoped Kakashi knew that too.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, please tell me what you thought about it...