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Unreasonable Demands
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Disclaimer- .:Le sigh:. If I owned them, Naruto's butt would be disfigured by now, and Iruka would be smiling A LOT more. Wonder why?
Summary: Iruka can't stand the nightmares he's been having… and what they make him do to a certain fox boy.
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Confusion never stops,
closing walls and ticking clocks
I could not stop.
singing come out upon my knees,
curse missed opportunities
am I a part of the cure,
or am I part of the disease?
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A/N- Hey guys! My 2nd Naruto Ficcy, so if you like it, feel free to check out my other Naruto/Iruka story! (Nothing to Lose) I do live on reviews, so if you want me to continue, drop me a note yeah? Also, votes for pairings are NOW OPEN! (Yay!) Relationship, or just father/son? Anyway, hope you like, ratings WILL go up, and bear with me, it WILL get better. .:smile:. Ah, and I do recognize that this chappy will be fast paced. I've been working on 5 redbulls throughout the day. It's to be expected. :-p
.O.
He hadn't meant to get caught up in this. In fact, he didn't want to be caught up in this. Of the fourteen that had left the Hidden leaf village only a fortnight ago, he was the last one standing. One man down per night at this rate. And now it was his turn.
Umuino Iruka had never dreamed he would one day be facing off with the great Orochimaru. And now, fate was, rather physically, laughing in his face. And he was, as luck would have it, completely out of tricks.
"Orochimaru." The wind picked up for a second, scattering the Autumn leaves and sending them swirling between the pair's legs. The last rays of sunlight caught the kunai held forcibly between the two like some last defense, reflecting back hues of red and orange. It shook as the robed man drew closer.
"Iruka, please don't tell me you're giving up? This chase has been much too fun." An inhuman tongue escaped the confines of the man's mouth, rolling across cheekbones and grazing a pale ear before slipping back between smirking lips. "I've actually rather enjoyed it."
"What," the chunnin's eyes dipped as he caught his breath. "Do you want?" The kunai began to sway between them, the toll of weariness finally catching up. The other man sneered, his voice deadly calm and quiet in the forest's gagged silence.
"I want the brat." He paused, then corrected himself. "I want the power inside the brat. I want the Nine Tailed Fox." His eyes danced in cruel pleasure. "And, I want to see you suffer."
"I won't let-"
A torrent of kunai hailed down on the pale sannin as his foot snagged a hidden wire, but it was as if an invisible barrier stood around him, deflecting each individual weapon.
"Didn't I tell you before, Iruka, your toys have no effect against me? Who do you think," the tongue rolled out once more. "You're fighting?"
"I told you, I won't let you touch Naru-"
"You're too late."
It was a stinging sensation on the vein at his wrist, but by the time he looked down, his vision had darkened and his strength was being sapped from his bones.
"You… what…?" The chunnin fell to his knees, and when his limbs failed to support him, he landed face down in the leaves on the ground.
"Kill him, Iruka, because if you don't, my gift will destroy the both of you."
Iruka could hear the soft slithering of a scaled body gliding across the ground, and could vaguely make out the form of a snake coiling around robed feet. Soft laughter, and then-
nothing.
On his wrists, two identical puncture wounds.
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"Iruka sensei! Iruka sensei!"
The chuunin had enough sense to sidestep before the orange blur whizzed by him, inertia preventing his immediate stop, which the brick academy wall obligingly did for him. Following behind at a more sedate pace was the rest of team seven, which was once more obscured by a detached shock of blonde hair, bobbing up and down in his vision.
"Iruka sensei," he whined, until the man looked down and acknowledge the now grinning teen. Naruto…had not changed. It had only been a month since Mizuki had inadvertently brought the two together. One month since Naruto had left the academy with all the other graduates. One more hopeless, timeless, month of fighting a losing battle for recognition. And here he was. "Man, it's been forever, and I'm starving! You're worse than Kakashi sensei when it comes to timing. But lets celebrate your return, and you can buy me some ramen!"
For a moment, the man's blood stilled at the sight of his former charge, and his throat constricted in a wild desire to squeeze the breath from the chunnin's lungs, but he calmed himself and smiled down at the blonde.
"Don't you have it the other way around? Say, Naruto, when are you going to start paying for my meals, eh?"
"But you promised me when you got back we'd-"
"Iruka! How was your mission?" Team seven's jounin leader strolled up, waving lazily at his younger colleague. "Hokage sure works us hard, don't you think?"
"It was… it went fine," he lied. Iruka had no wish to expose the details of his mission-gone-wrong. Not to these people…not to anyone. His stomach rolled unpleasantly when the masked man joined him, dipping his head slightly towards the vacant meeting room, indicating his desire to talk privately. Did he…know?
"You know, Naruto…" The boy's head shot up at his name, and Kakashi continued, "I happen to recall some really nice training grounds we passed up about an hour or so ago… and was thinking you could work a bit more on your chakra control…" Blue eyes lit up in radiant hope, ramen forgotten for the moment. "Oh, just think how much, how shall we put it, stronger someone could become in a day working there…" his hand wrapped around the orange collar of the boy's jacket to prevent him from taking off in the direction they had come from.
"Unfortunately, I'd hate to think of you training all by yourself, and maybe, say, overexerting your chakra. It'd be a little too bothersome to lug your corpse back to the village on a stretcher and explain just what happened. Oh well, nevermind. Just forget I said anything."
Naruto's eyes bulged. This was the chance he needed to increase his strength, and he wouldn't just stand back and let it pass him by.
"Sakura will take me! Won't you, Sakura? Please?" Large blue orbs turned towards his pink haired companion.
"Sensei, that's really cold. Why do you always use Naruto's stupidity and one track mind against the rest of us?" Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. I'm not going, Naruto."
There was a long drawn out sigh by the nearest tree, and then, "I'll take you, dobe. I need to work on my shurikan anyway."
"Oh, Sasuke, it's so noble of you to help the poor dumb people like that!" Sakura crooned, running to catch up with the glaring pair. Kakashi waited until they had disappeared over the ridge before letting his smile drop.
"Iruka, what happened during the mission?" His voice was firm, almost demanding an answer of the younger man.
Shit.
"We just ran into… a, ah…into a little bit of troub-"
"Bullshit." Iruka's eyes widened, but he said nothing. "You come back from an encounter with someone as…twisted as Orochimaru, yes, I know about that," he said as the other man opened his mouth. "and of fourteen of some of our finer ninja, you're the only one to return. I'll ask again. What. Happened?"
"Are you calling me incompetent?" Iruka snapped back, trying to avoid the question with one of his own, wishing now more than ever that he could just disappear into his paperwork.
Crap. He needed to catch up on the paperwork he'd missed during the mission.
"No, I'm saying you've changed somehow since then. Nothing happened?"
"No," Iruka stated more firmly. "Nothing happened. Lucky escape. That's all."
The older man's eye flickered down, pinpointing the healing puncture wounds on the chuunin's wrist before they were hastily hidden behind his back.
"I see."
And he was gone, leaving Iruka standing in front of the old academy building, feeling utterly hopeless and rather weak. But there was a good, unanswered question.
What had happened back then?
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"You should have been there, sensei! Sasuke lost his nerve, lost his nerve, and I had to go in and save him!" Naruto raised his chopsticks in the air in a victory wave, as his former teacher smiled fondly at the conclusion of his exaggerated story.
"How come it is that Sasuke's always in dire need of your help on these missions, and yet you're the only one who comes back with medical needs? You're driving the medics insane, you know." He nudged the boy with his shoulder, and Naruto grumbled. "So tell me more?"
"No, I'm done," the boy sulked, raising his hand for yet another bowl of ramen, which was instantly delivered by a smiling girl.
Iruka laughed, then leaned closer and sighed.
"Too bad, then. I really wanted to hear more about Sakura." This got Naruto's attention, had him retelling all of the day's encounters with the pink haired kunoichi, but the man's attention was beginning to drift.
"…and then she said- 'Go to hell, Naruto', but the way she said my name…"
A small trickle of drool escaped the boy's mouth as he gazed unseeing into the far corner of the ramen stand, head tilted against his hand. When it was obvious the boy was thoroughly into his fantasy, Iruka lapsed into his own, completely lost in memories of…not too long before.
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Iruka could see their faces vividly clear. His long dead- his twelve year dead parents as they had been the day they left him. He reached out to them, suddenly no longer a grown man of twenty five, but thirteen years old, begging his parents not to leave.
Not to fight.
Not to die.
In his subconscious, he knew what was coming, knew that he would once more be forced to witness them being ripped savagely apart as if they were no more than rag dolls, but he had to try.
And this time, they didn't leave.
His mother reached out to him, kneeling down to embraced him and stroke his hair, and into his ear she whispered, "What are you doing, Iruka?" He smiled as he felt the tickle of her lips against his ear, and whispered back,
"I'm waiting."
"What are you doing, Iruka?" Her voice was like silk, smooth and rippling, so full of life.
"I'm-"
"What are you doing to me, Iruka?" Her voice rose, and the boy's smile faded in fear as nails bit into his shoulder. The voice was no longer light or caressing anymore. "What are you doing to me, Iruka?"
He screamed and struggled away from the figure that was tearing savagely into his flesh. He could feel the trails of, was it sweat or blood? Running down his spine in an icy trickle.
"You're not my-"
But she had him by the throat, raising his feet off the ground as he kicked and thrashed savagely in her grasp.
"What Are You Doing To Me, Iruka?" she shrieked.
Iruka let himself go limp in her clutches, dipping fingers into the pouch at his side. His fingers grazed the contents, but the woman shook his body, yelling and cursing all the while.
"No…" He refused to cry, holding the hurt and pain behind a wall of defiance. This wasn't his mother! One more lunge at his leg pouch brought a kunai swinging up towards his parent's image.
"…WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME, IRUKA?"
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"Iruka!" The firm and commanding voice lashed out at him like a whip, snapping him back to his physical body, though he could still feel the sensation of nails on skin. "Iruka, drop it, or I will disarm you myself."
…Drop what?
"Eh, sensei, that's not fair, you had me going for a second! But you're right! I'll definitely have to watch my back, but man! What a surprise! You can let me go now, you know…"
The chuunin stared at his nervously smiling blonde haired pupil, mind not registering the sight before him, but certainly aware of the cool blade that rested just below his chin. His mind screamed danger at him, making his muscles tense, and he could feel the blade tighten in response. What the hell was Naruto still doing here?.! He should be hiding, running, anywhere doing anything but standing around watching as his confused as hell teacher stood with a knife to his throat.
"Naruto, run," he hissed, hoping the brainless boy would have the sense to do as he was told. Just this time. That was all the mattered.
But he only grinned, standing there like a fool.
"Um, sensei…I can't."
Shit! Had he overlooked an injury on the boy that was maybe preventing his escape? Iruka scanned the child, frowning in confusion when-
"Oh shit!"
As if it were hot metal, the man dropped the kunai that he had been gripping at eye level, a stance that allowed him full access to drive the blade into the boy's heart. Or head. Or Neck…or really, wherever the hell he chose at the moment. A heartbeat later he withdrew the hand he had used to pin Naruto by the chest up against the ramen stand wall. The knife at his own throat relaxed, only slightly, until the blonde had wriggled off to the side, well out of arms length of the armed chuunin.
He turned around, only to discover he had gained an audience. The young ramen server and her father, old man Ichiraku, and directly behind him, casually pocketing a kunai blade…
"Kakashi?" he whispered through numbed lips.
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THE BIG PURPLE BUTTON IS YOUR -friend-!!