Beware of spoilers for Knock on Wood Konoha!
Title: Chronicles of Years Vol. II – Atebolrwydd (Accountability)
Rating: PG/T
Summary: The first years of Iruka and Itachi, up to Itachi leaving the village.
Chronicles of Years Vol. II: The Life and Times of Umino Iruka and Uchiha Itachi
For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.'
-John Greenleaf Whittier
ooo0ooo
When he was one Iruka…well Iruka can't actually remember anything from when he was one…or two…or three…or four for that matter.
There's a dark place, then it's all a blur of happy memories, laughter and joy.
ooo0ooo
When Iruka was six, he was finally old enough to leave his house without one of the many adults in his life insisting on accompanying him. He started taking long walks in the forest, stretching his wings and testing the boundaries. He's not aware of his value yet, of why all those adults always have one eye on him and one eye on everything else.
It's on one of those walks that it happens. He's was cornered by a group of missing nin from Leaf. The neat line across their forehead protectors is shocking. Iruka recognizes them from pictures hanging in the Konoha Military Police offices and assumes they're after him for his status as Sandamine's adored godson. He'll find out later about their allegiance to Danzo and the Three Clan meeting with Sandamine that ended their careers and sparked the hatred he sees that day.
There are six of them, at one point they were some of the best shinobi in Hidden Leaf. Jounin ranked with years in ANBU but Iruka is, well, Iruka. The son of ninja, godson to a Hokage. He runs through the clan compounds without a care in the world even though his parents are clanless. Tsume lets him play with Kuromaru unsupervised for Kami's sake.
He is six years old and he will not go down without a fight. Kicking and screaming and employing what little he knows of the shinobi arts, he does damage.
A broken nose, a broken rib, screaming, and a surprising amount of blood lead to a very surprised and very angry group of jounin ranked missing nin. Not to mention that Iruka screamed at the top of his lungs the entire time.
Their leader decided a good way to shut him up was pain and it worked, if only for a short time.
When you're six and someone uses a kunai to draw a line on your face you tend to get quiet.
The missing nin were pretty happy after that.
Until the future Yondaime and his team accidentally stumbled upon the whole thing, which was actually rather amusing. Apparently, Minato had been teaching them survival techniques in the forest when he'd sensed the strange chakra and decided to investigate.
Iruka was proud, the chakra flare technique he'd learned had managed to catch the famed Yellow Flash's attention without alerting the missing nin to what he was doing. Of course, Iruka didn't have a clue who they were, just that they were there and they were leaf nin without the slash across their forehead protectors and they were armed.
As always happens, the missing nin screwed up the rescue by using Iruka as a shield.
"Don't move or we kill the child."
-Damn.- Minato stopped dead, motioning for his team to do the same. Kakashi sent him a confused look, Minato was fast enough to save the boy. Rin gripped her kunai so tight her knuckles went white and Obito couldn't help but exclaim, "Iruka!" in a terrified voice.
His team turned to him in confusion and only the memory of his promise kept him from saying more.
"Obito, you know him?" Minato asked. The missing nin looked just as interested.
"He's Umino-sensei and Officer Umino's son. I met him when they visited the head of the Uchiha Clan at the last festival. His mother is a jounin and his dad works with the military police."
"Umino-sensei's son?" Kakashi and Rin repeated. They knew who Umino-sensei was, pretty much everyone did. She was the wife of one of the very few none Uchiha members of the military police and a formidable jounin level kunoichi renown for her quick thinking and compassion. They were also well known for adopting an orphan found on a battlefield and their open adoration for the child. Minato had always admired their staunch belief that children should be protected and never used as soldiers.
Minato frowned as he noted the freshly bleeding gash across the child's face and felt a surge of rage. His students probably weren't aware, but the future Yondaime was aware of another fact that made the situation much more intense. Iruka was the Third Hokage's adored godson and when he said adored, he meant adored.
He also knew that Umino-sensei and Officer Umino weren't all that keen on their son following them into the life of a shinobi.
Which, really, only served to make him angrier at the situation.
"Let him go," Minato snarled, his student's tensing for a fight and hiding their surprise at his tone.
"Iruka?" Obito kept trying to talk to the boy, to calm him down and keep his attention.
The tears welling in Iruka's eyes were threatening to spill over. He was biting his lip in an effort not to sob. "You're…from the Uchiha clan right?" Sniff. "Ob-something?"
"Obito," he beamed at the younger boy. "Its alright, we're here to help."
"The hell you are!" The missing nin snarled, but they hadn't made any move to attack, wary of Minato's reputation.
Iruka took a deep breath, the tears started to fade. "Well, that's nice. Where were you an hour ago?" He yelled as loud as he could taking everyone in the clearing by surprise.
"Uh…." No one could answer and Iruka didn't seem all that scared, despite the new gash across his face.
It made them look closer and Kakashi noticed the rather beat up state of the missing nin the same time his teammates did.
"Wow, did you do that yourself?" Rin asked, voice warm.
"Well, I wasn't just going to sit back and let them kidnap me. Now, if you don't mind, GET ME OUTTA HERE!" Iruka kept yelling for freedom, kicking and screaming for all he was worth.
Minato and his students rushed forward, blurs of speed and death.
As with these situation though, things didn't go smoothly. Minato and his students were outnumbered two to one and they had to make sure Iruka remained unharmed. Not an easy task for anyone, including Konoha's Yellow Flash.
Thankfully, they weren't on their own for long.
Because if there is one thing to remember, it's this: Shinobi are dangerous and shinobi parents with a child in danger are the stuff of the worst nightmares. A combination of powerful intuition and possessive over protectiveness.
Which explained the two blurs of speed that entered the clearing less then a minute later, sent Minato and his team flying out of the way, and slaughtered every missing nin in a matter of seconds.
Minato and his students learned one of the most important lessons of their lives that day: never, ever get between a mother and her child when that child was in danger. Especially if that mother was a ninja.
"Dad! Mom!" Iruka looked over joyed, like he'd never doubted they'd come and he hadn't.
"Hey sweetie, I love you. You're so brave to stand up to these pieces of garbage! Do you want to go get ice cream?" Watching Iruka's mother coo at her son while simultaneously stabbing an already dead missing nin in the eye with an extremely sharp kunai, while her husband apologized for scarring the life out of them and helped them up while refusing to let go of his son was touching and terrifying.
Minato actually started to feel bad for the dead missing nin somewhere are the time Iruka's mother started burning things and swore never to date a single mother.
Kakashi and Obito swore never to have kids.
Rin stared in open adoration.
Kakashi never remembered the brown haired boy with the scar.
Iruka never remembered the silver haired boy with the mask.
ooo0ooo
When Iruka was seven, Itachi was born. A small body with dark eyes and hair and rosy cherub cheeks. His parents had rushed him out of class at the academy, Fugaku and Mikoto wanted him to be one of the first to meet the one they called his little brother.
Iruka's first thought was small, soft, innocent.
When Itachi first saw Iruka, he was a giant head of chocolate brown hair framing curious eyes. The first thing he did was reach for a strand of hair and pull.
Mikoto smiled and brushed the rest of Iruka's bangs back with a warm, sweaty hand.
Fugaku's laughter filled the room, joined quickly by Iruka's parents and Hiruzen and the few others gathered.
Iruka was not impressed, although his brother never stopped teasing him.
ooo0ooo
When Iruka was nine, he was constantly getting roped into babysitting Itachi in the Hokage's office while Sandaime, Fugaku, Tsume, Shibi, and Sakumo attended a meeting of Konoha clan heads.
When Itachi was one, he spoke for the first time, calling out for the older boy ignoring him in favor of one of the Hokage's scolls. In revenge for making him babysit, Iruka changed all the dates in Sandaime's schedule, looking up when he was finished to find Itachi staring at him with wide wet eyes, arms outstretched, doing his best and falling to say Iruka's name. "-ruuka."
It was pure instinct that made him sweep the boy into his lap, arms wrapped around him. Sandaime had done it when Iruka was younger, his father and mother still did it all the time. Even Fugaku and Sakumo when he'd been hurt in training.
It was natural to do it to Itachi.
ooo0ooo
For a while, Iruka's life consisted of training, classes at the Academy, his brother and Itachi. They would be the happiest years of his life.
ooo0ooo
The death of Iruka's brother shattered his world, awoke something deep within him that Fugaku made him swear never to show anyone out side the Uchiha Clan or Tsume or Shibi and gave birth to a burning hatred for the one that had failed to save him.
Fugaku asked him to become his apprentice and Iruka in a fit of anger and overwhelming sadness agreed without a second thought.
He entered the Third Shinobi World War after that.
ooo0ooo
Sasuke is born. The bright spot in a very dark place. Iruka and Itachi cannot be separated from him and no one tries to. Itachi shares his first thoughts on the baby and Iruka laughs for the first time in a while because it's the same thing he first thought about Itachi.
Sasuke is only days old when Itachi holds him close and watches their parents leave in an attempt to stop what they know is inevitable. It takes Itachi, Shisui, and three other hunters to hold off the puppets sent for his newborn brother.
Iruka loses his parents and faces the terrifying truth that his brother survived and has changed, but love wins out. Iruka swears never fight his brother, no matter what happens. Fugaku says that's okay, that's fine, I would expect nothing less, but, he can't take the boy Iruka, he can't.
So Iruka goes, stands in the middle of the only road available for his brother to leave without gathering attention and demands the small bundle that already resembles the sun. Its startling anti-climatic. They are brothers, by blood, by soul, by heart. One of them might destroy the world but they'll never lift their swords against one another. Asura and Indra and their curse be damned.
Iruka brings the wailing child back to the bodies of its parents and spends the rest of the night crying over the bodies of his own.
Parents protect their children. Those words, already with so much meaning from Iruka's early childhood, will haunt Iruka for the rest of his life.
ooo0ooo
For a while nothing seems to matter.
Fugaku tells him to pick and apprentice and the choice requires no thought. In between the war, the Academy, and his own hunter training, Iruka begins training Itachi.
ooo0ooo
He graduates the academy somewhat late and by the skin of his teeth, too distracted by a million other things to take it seriously.
The burning desire to be a ninja had never been there. It was an occupation shared by every important adult in his life until the night of the Kyuubi attack.
Now he didn't have anything better to do.
Sandaime, unaware, spent as much time as possible with him, teaching him everything he knew, trying to fill the boy's unguided thirst for knowledge and the love he'd lost.
But even the God of Shinobi knew that at that moment, he wasn't what the boy needed.
Ironically, it wasn't the hunter training, the missions, the Genin team he'd been assigned to that was fractured and split and only served to remind Iruka that he'd lost the people who worked with him flawlessly.
It was a young Uchiha genius with red eyes and a broken heart.
ooo0ooo
Iruka and Itachi are not on equal footing until Iruka is a teenager and Itachi graduates the Academy so many years early that he sets a record.
They begin to grow together, wound so tightly around one another that Tsume comments that they smell the same.
Iruka has his own apartment even though he can live at the Uchiha, Inuzukua, Aburame, or even the Hokage's residence whenever he chooses. But the apartment reminds him of what he lost, of the parents who loved him and raised him and died for a village Iruka has begun to loose faith in and Iruka doesn't want to sully their memory by just moving on and getting new ones.
Itachi spends most of his free time split between the Uchiha's extensive library and Iruka's apartment. Scrolls and books Iruka's pretty sure Fugaku doesn't know are missing are scattered throughout the tiny apartment.
Konohagakure's bloody history is written in the neat script of generations of Uchiha that can't forget a second of it surround the bed.
Forbidden jutsu's created by generations of Uchiha devoted to their love of battle and never shared outside the clan are stacked high in the living room slash dining room.
Anything anyone ever managed to discover about the sharingan and the curse fill every other available surface.
Itachi is looking for hope, Iruka wants to save them all, and all they are finding is question upon question and the knowledge that every Uchiha who spent their entire lifetime searching never found the right answer.
Itachi announces one day that he has become a pacifist, trying and failing to forget what he's had to do in the name of his village and at such a young age. Despite this, he doesn't stop taking missions.
Iruka is still grieving for his parents, for his brother, he can barely take care of himself in a way that's considered healthy, he doesn't have the time or energy to try and take care of someone else.
But he won't leave Itachi. He doesn't know what to do because every time they sit together Itachi's attached to his side like he's searching for warmth his own body has lost the ability to provide.
ooo0ooo
Iruka knows instantly that Fugaku's plan won't work. As much as he wants it too there are too many against them. The only saving grace is the Third Hokage, who dedicates his time to attempting to talk Fugaku out of it instead of allowing the Konoha Council to take action.
Fugaku resigns from the Hanta, leaving Iruka, barely an adult, as the captain of a group of shinobi responsible for the protection of every shinobi in Hidden Leaf. To say he's not ready is an understatement.
But Itachi is always there, a strong shadow most people miss. Iruka adores him. Itachi is the only apprentice Iruka will ever take, clay that Iruka can mold to his hearts content. He is shattering records in ANBU now, the youngest captain in the group's history.
They are brothers, sharing the same soul, same heart. They have the same goal and despite the differing opinions on how to carry it out, their bond remains strong.
ooo0ooo
For a while things exist in a haze and then Itachi, noble, gentle, kind hearted first son, can't bring himself to betray the village. Fugaku, so broken hearted, too broken hearted to notice immediately what's happening, like the devoted loving father he is turns a blind eye, allowing his sons to pick their own way in life.
ooo0ooo
Iruka tries to intervene and he's stopped by Kikyo. He unlocks a new level of power but looses the fight and its weeks before he's physically recovered.
Itachi breaks the same night, executing his parents after swearing to protect Sasuke, who it has been decided will be the only survivor.
Sandaime, only now truly aware of what has been happening, does what he can in the aftermath. He promises Itachi access, takes as much power from Danzo as he can, and watches over a broken Iruka as he sleeps. It occurs to him then, that Konoha has taken three families from Iruka and for the first time he questions whether or not Iruka will stay.
Sandaime searches, obsessively, to find a way to bring Itachi back, until Itachi himself says to stop. Itachi has made his choice, leaving his faith in Iruka and the baby brother not yet old enough to understand what is happening and a little bit in the little boy that looks like the sun, whom Iruka hasn't been able to turn his back on.
ooo0ooo
Sandaime is the Third Hokage of Konohagakure, he was trained by great shinobi, he is a great shinobi, but he is not the one who has written the future of this village. When Iruka returns from one of his frequent, unreported trips outside the boundaries of Hidden Leaf, and requests to resign from the Hanta Nin Sandaime does not argue. Iruka's eyes have an exhaustion in them that Sandaime himself, in all his years, cannot touch.
The rest of the Hanta Nin follow suit and Sandaime does not choose replacements.
He is confident that good will win out in the end.
Itachi will return and Iruka's broken pieces will fall back together.
He is not foolish enough to think he will live to see it.
ooo0ooo
So….so many changes! I tried to keep the original style and flow, but I had to change a lot to make it fit with the new KoWK. Let me know what you think!