A Semblance of Calm
a fanfic by the butter of flies
naruto characters belong to their creator Masashi Kishimoto
the butter of flies receives no financial gain from the writing of this work
mild shounen-ai in later chapters you have been warned
additional note: the butter of flies is currently seeking someone to beta the later chapters. Anyone who is interested should email the butter of flies at cicadalxsolstitium at yahoo dot com
The butter of flies thanks you for your interest in A Semblance of Calm.
I. Two Deaths
The spring morning came slowly upon Konoha.
Outside, the streets were eerily quiet and solemn in their emptiness. The shops and restaurants opened their doors, but there were few customers. The owners and patrons were not chatting as they usually did and there was no idle talk. When speech could not avoided, they whispered in hushed tones.
By and by, it was noon, but no children played in the Academy courtyard, and still the streets remained empty and silent and still. When finally the school bell rang and class ended, the students filed out in their usual small groups, but were as quiet as they had been in the classroom. They did not laugh but instead said their good-byes in the subdued and stifled tones used by adults.
Many of the Academy children would round the last corner, sprinting the final block. Up the creaking stairs they'd run, flinging open their front doors with heavy dread. Then, chided by adult voices and rebuked for slamming the door, many of these children sank to the ground, glad they were safe for one more day and did as they were told with relieved fervor. With parents came safety and no longer did they despise the monotone of every-day life.
But some came home to silent houses, suspiciously empty of an adult presence. Their parents had been shinobi, but they were now dead shinobi, and dead shinobi are useless. They left child after child behind. Fortunately, Konoha's shinobi were brought up well, so most children only lost one parent. The unlucky ones lost both, and they were orphans.
Uminou Iruka had always been an ordinary boy, a bit prone to pranks maybe, but rather good ones, if he did say so himself. He had never been especially lucky, but no one had ever called him unlucky either.
But when Iruka came home to a house as silent and hushed as the streets, the feeling of emptiness was a heavy hand. Loneliness leaned against him as he did his homework, made himself dinner, and clambered into his parents' bed.
The next morning, when a bleeding, ragged jounin on his father's team showed up at his door, stammering his condolences and adverting his baggy, shadowed eyes, Iruka was tempted to slam the door in the jounin's face, the harder the better. Only the knowledge that his parents had brought him up to show common courtesy stayed his hand.
Distrustful, Iruka stared at the man. He knew why the jounin had appeared, but did not press the man for an explanation. Iruka did not want anyone to verify what he himself already knew to be true: there was no god, and even if there was, that god was a stingy god and no amount of wishing or praying or hating would give Iruka what he wanted. Life was not just something you could trade for, like a bartering chip.
That day, Iruka was strangely calm. After the jounin finished, Iruka offered him some green tea prepared just for the sake of politeness and motioned for the man to come in and sit down, as his mother would have done, had she—
The jounin, blood pooling at his feet, declined just as politely as Iruka had politely offered the tea, and awkwardly excusing himself, said he really ought to be going.
"I told a friend I'd train with him today," the man mumbled, and Iruka pretended he didn't see the puddle of blood sitting conspicuously on the doorstep. Smiling his pleasant smile, the boy closed the door in the man's face before the jounin could stammer a good-bye or another blatant lie.
After, even alone in the house, Iruka did not cry. He stared at the framed pictures of his parents with admirable bravado and held his tears as he lay in his parent's bed, smoothing the same patch of cloth over and over and over with his hand. Around him, the sheets were messy. They lay crumpled and towering in heaps, but Iruka could not bring himself to make the bed and left the sheets as his parents had left them; somehow, they had become sacred overnight.
When Iruka woke the following morning, the summer sun struck him in the face and for a moment, the light blinded him. He struggled to a sitting position, feeling disorientated and groggy, the sheets and the two-day-old clothes he hadn't bothered to change out of sticking to his damp skin. Iruka plucked at his wet shirt half-heartedly, too exhausted to care about the stickiness. He was sure he smelled terrible and looked awful to boot, but damn it, he didn't care.
Iruka slid out of the bed, stumbled to the bathroom, and examined himself in the mirror. His hair was a mass of black and his clothes were rumbled. If anyone saw him now, they'd think he'd been attacked and left in a ditch to die or something. He grinned at his image, and the pale, thinly hideous Iruka in the mirror grinned back.
Leaving the bathroom, he glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Half the morning was gone and that he was several hours late for school. Despite himself, he grabbed set a clothes, brushed his teeth, washed his face. When Iruka picked up a wide-toothed comb to untangle his hair, he paused, watched his reflection in the mirror. He tugged at the dark strands his mother should have cut two days ago; they reached past his ears and, framing his face, made his features delicate, feminine even.
Iruka reached for a pair of scissors, but decided against it. He rather liked his hair long. Anyway, his father had always wanted a daughter, and the look suited him more than Iruka liked to admit. Maybe he should've been born a girl instead. Iruka put the scissors back in the drawer.
He picked up his backpack on the way out, pausing at the door. What had happened two days ago transcended the realm of normality, and Iruka's innate maturity that told him, quite plainly, there was nothing to go back to. He would have to create what he wanted on his own.
But he was still a child, naïve and uncertain. Iruka stood at the doorway and looked back into the house. He realized he didn't know where to go, only that home was no longer a welcoming place.
Iruka bit his lip as his eyes stung. Burying his face in his hands, he sat down, the doorframe digging into his back. Fiercely, he rubbed the tears away. His mother had hated tears, so Iruka would not cry, and his father used to say he loved Iruka's smiling face, so Iruka plastered a grin on his face and stood up.
His legs shaking as he stomped down the stairs, he stepped out into the quiet streets. Iruka's mouth twitched as he forced the smile in place, attracting a worried glance from the middle-aged landlady. He glanced her way, gave a wave in her direction. Then Iruka went to the only place he knew had not changed.
He walked deliberately slowly, and by the time Iruka stepped through Academy door, it was already lunchtime. The other children where sitting under the trees in the courtyard, eating, as he entered the gates. They stared at Iruka as he passed, but when he caught them looking, they turned away, disguising their unease by chatting energetically with their friends.
Then Iruka flashed his newly acquired permanent grin in their direction, and a hush fell on the courtyard. Iruka searched their faces, and realized he knew what they were thinking. Their appalled faces betrayed them.
But his parents—What is he, an unfeeling monster? How is he still able to smile?
Iruka adjusted the straps of his backpack, gave a nearby pebble a good kick and sent the rock flying in their direction.
The children scattered, peered at him as if he were a demon.
How ironic. He was the demon now, trying to kill the memory of his parents at lurked in his heart. Iruka wanted to cry, but the other children were still watching him. He scrutinized them as they hid behind the trees. They were pathetic, but they didn't even know it. Iruka smiled at the trees, a gentle smile meant to instill fear, and the children shrank away, following him with their eyes as he disappeared into the Academy.
The bell was ringing and class was out. Iruka stood in front of the desk, watching his teacher grade papers.
"Sensei? You said you wanted to see me after class."
Iruka's teacher looked up from the pile papers lying on the desk and into the face of a smiling thirteen-year-old. "Oh, right, Iruka. Thank you for remembering." A pause, then, "You're doing all right, it seems."
"Yes."
His teacher looked at him as if Iruka were not quite right in the head. The boy had just lost his parents, and he was smiling.
It certainly wasn't unheard of in a hidden village, where many of the children had shinobi for parents and weren't close to them, but Iruka was a good child with good parents. He'd met them before, Iruka's parents, on the first day of school, and they were friendly people. His mother cracked jokes, his father beamed, and it was obvious they were proud of their son.
The second bell rang. Iruka watched as the last few students trickled out. When he turned, Iruka found that his teacher was examining him critically. In the Academy sensei's hand was a letter, neatly folded and without an envelope.
The teacher held it out to Iruka, his gaze was steady on the boy, the heavy eyes of someone accustomed to loss. "This is a letter from Hokage-sama. I have not read it. The letter is sealed with a jutsu that will only allow you, the desired recipient, to read it. Hokage-sama has requested that you read the letter and, after you finish, you are to answer either 'yes' or 'no'."
Iruka reached out, took the folded paper, studied the official seal of Konoha stamped in red on the creamy paper. "When does he want the answer?"
"Now, as soon as you've read it."
"Now?" Iruka repeated, surprised and curious despite himself. He turned the letter in his hands again and inspected the blankness of the letter's other side. Miraculously, no ink had escaped through the thin paper, and Iruka wondered if the paper itself was not protected with a jutsu as well. The Hokage must have grave business indeed to employ such precautions in delivering a letter to a thirteen-year-old boy.
His teacher sat watching expectantly as Iruka broke the seal and unfolded the letter.
Iruka read it once, then read it again. He chewed his finger as he did so, which his sensei noted as a nervous habit. Iruka set the letter carefully on the desk and did not meet his teacher's eyes. Returning to his seat, he grabbed his backpack. The classroom door shut with a soft click, and Iruka was gone.
Curious, his Academy sensei picked up the letter. He hesitated before opening it, but finally deciding it was in his student's best interest, unfolded the letter. The jutsu guarding the seal and paper had been deactivated already by Iruka's touch, so the sensei was able to read it without any obstacles.
Iruka, it read.
I am afraid I must confirm what you surely have already suspected.
Please know, Iruka, that while I cannot return your parents to you, I will do all in my power to help you. Your current home will be vested to you and you may do what you wish with it. You have a considerable sum left to you and I am sure it will sustain you until you come of age and secure your own employment.
Iruka, if you continue your studies at the Academy and because you are your parents' son, I am certain you will be able to become an accomplished shinobi of Konoha. I know your parents had high hopes for you, so I hope you will not disappoint them. With your father's death, there is an ANBU opening, and I will be saving it for you. Please remember that.
If you are willing, visit my office tomorrow at noon. I would like to speak to you in person and offer you the opportunity to train with a highly qualified shinobi. He can help you achieve the skill level necessary to become an ANBU member.
When you have finished reading this letter, please give your answer to your teacher.
I hope to see you tomorrow at noon.
The Third Hokage of Hidden Leaf Village, Konoha
In the empty space at the end of the letter, a word had been scrawled in red. Blood, the sensei realized in shock, remembering how Iruka had chewed a finger as he read the letter.
The Academy teacher glanced at the door, but Iruka, of course, was already gone.