Title: Ten Thousand Toy Soldiers
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I do not own the song lyrics in italics, those belong to the Rolling Stones form the song "Dead Flowers."
AN: This is a story about Iruka's team. I'm sorry; I didn't much research for this, so if we do know anyone was ever on Irukas team, forgive me, for they do not exist in this fic. I hope the OC's aren't too painful; I always hate reading them (unless they're likeable and believable) but love writing them. Go figure, I'm a hypocrite. Anyway, if you can't tell this is set after the Kyuubi comes and sort-of during the war with Iwagakure, during the Kakashi Gaiden arc. If the war ended at that battle, forgive me, I'm a fool. Oh, and the title had nothing to do with the fic, I just thought it was cool.
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers at my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
No I won't forget to put roses on your grave
She sat down next to him. He'd managed to not jump in surprise. How had she crossed that distance in such a short time? And so silently… Then again, she'd always been able to sneak up on him like that. Probably always would be, too. He wondered if it made her a good ninja, or him a bad one. She was silent for a moment, pulling her legs up against her chest and hugging them, as if to shield herself from the cold. She looked up at the, the stars twinkling brightly tonight, even as the war between Konoha and Iwagakure raged on not too far from where they sat in the peaceful clearing.
The silence was long, but Iruka enjoyed it. He always liked Manmaru better when she was quiet, since she hardly ever had anything nice to say to him. But it seemed Manmaru was not content to just sit looking at the stars and mourning silently beside him.
"He's dead, you know." She told him, her voice flat and empty, so unlike her that Iruka half thought she was really their other teammate Tensaiji, cold bastard he was, in disguise.
Of course, Iruka knew whom she was talking about. He'd seen their sensei rushed in on a stretcher, gushing blood with twenty kunai embedded in his back, and his leg twisted in an unimaginably painful angle. He'd been sitting between Manmaru and Tensaiji as they chitter-chattered and squabbled about nothing. She knew he knew. He knew from the moment their sensei had been brought in that there'd be no way to save him.
The war with Iwagakure no Sato was still raging, but the largest battle had just started, the battle that determined who the victor would be after all this mess was over. Even after the horror of the Kyuubi had ended and the Fourth Hokage had sacrificed himself, the war had not ended. In fact, it had probably just begun. Their opponents had struck when they were weak, short on shinobi, short on leadership, and short on hope.
Still, he turned and grinned at her. "Who?" He asked cheerfully. Because he was cheerful idiot that always did everything wrong and because he was supposed to act like that. He was supposed to be optimistic and believe that their sensei would be fine, even if he knew in his heart that it was just a stupid, false hope.
For once, Manmaru didn't expect him to act stupid and ignorant as he usually did. She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, still not looking at him.
"Stop playing dumb." She hissed at him. "I saw the look on your face when they brought him in. You looked like you were about to cry. You crybaby." She sighed and shook her head, looking down at the grass, waving gently in the breeze. "Stop acting tough, because you're not." She told him sharply and angrily.
Iruka shifted uncomfortably. He was used to acting like a goon, an idiot. He wasn't sure if he was allowed to be serious like she wanted. He wasn't sure he wanted to be serious. He just wanted to… Laugh it off, like some sort of sick joke. The kind of immature prank that wasn't really funny past age six, but he'd still laugh at it anyway.
"Sorry." He muttered at last.
"That's better," she told him, though not really sounding content. It sounded like she was had wanted him to say something else. But, he didn't know what that something else was. He shifted uncomfortably again, picking at the grass, twisting it between his fingers.
"Erm, where's Tensaiji?" He asked hesitantly.
Manmaru sighed, her grip around her legs tightening. "He's getting ready." She told him softly.
"Ready for what?" Iruka replied, startled.
"To go." She said, her gaze shifting towards him, though she didn't turn her head. "We both decided that we're going to join the fight."
Iruka stared at her, shocked. He shook his head, eyes widening. "W-what? Why?" He cried, leaping to his feet. "You know Gennin aren't allowed to fight!"
Manmaru stood up, too. She was slow and a bit sluggish, so ungraceful and disjointed that it was almost as if she'd gotten drunk or something. She'd never been one to abide the rules, but she wasn't one to ruin drown her sorrows, either.
"We've decided to go. We're no help just sitting around here, waiting and worrying about everyone." She said, looking down at the grass, lightly kicking her foot against a stone. When she looked up and met his eyes, he flinched away. Her gaze was hard and blazing with an intense determination. "We're going to fight. Now that Keishou-sensei's gone, we're just going to get stuck with another Jounin who's just going to start our teaching all over again, if there's any left by the end of this. Besides, this way, we get some experience… And… Tensaiji and I decided that we weren't going to let them get away with killing Keishou-sensei." She said, smiling with a fierce anger he'd never seen in her before.
Iruka was speechless for a moment. "B-but, are you leaving right now?" he sputtered.
"Yes." She said softly. "I'm here to ask if you want to come too. Tensaiji said you might want to come."
Iruka stared at her again. "B-but we might get killed!" He exclaimed. "Did you talk with the Hokage, first?" He asked.
"No. We're leaving now. We can't tell anyone else, they wouldn't let us go."
"I'm not letting you go!" He cried. "Keishou-sensei just died, and now you want to go off and get killed too?"
"You think so little of us." She snorted. "We're Konoha shinobi. We're going to make it."
"Don't be stupid!" He exclaimed. "You're going to get killed! There's Chuunin and Jounin out there!"
"Manmaru," a dull voice said from behind them.
They turned, looking at their teammate, the moon lighting him up like a dark panther in the night, as he stood in waiting for them on the tree branch. He was gripping a large bag, probably for Manmaru. Iruka stared and Tenaiji gave him a cold, empty look in return. He'd always been close with their sensei, like brothers or something. Iruka had thought that it was odd at the time.
"I know, I know." Manmaru replied, sighing. "But Iruka's being a chicken again." She turned back to Iruka, her hands on her hips. "So, what's it gonna be? You coming with us or not?"
Iruka stared back at her, still hesitating.
"We don't have time for this." Tensaiji told her sternly.
Manmaru sighed and ran her hands through her hair for before shaking her head angrily. "Coming or not, Iruka?"
"I-I can't." He muttered. "I don't want to. We're not supposed to leave Konoha's gates. W-we're supposed to help rebuild, and-"
Iruka was cut off as he was sprawling across the clearing. He landed heavily on the ground on his back, clutching his throbbing cheek where his female teammate had landed a hard punch.
"Coward!" She shrieked at him. "You're a fucking coward! You don't give a damn about anyone except yourself! You'd rather save your own worthless hide than help anyone else!" She snarled.
Manmaru stood towering over him. Her hands were clenched in fists so tightly her knuckles were white. Her arms were shaking with the tension. Her eyes glittered with tears and Iruka was shocked. He'd never seen her cry before, not even when she killed her first man, or when they all sat in the hospital watching her mother die as they turned off the life support that had kept her alive for three years. She never cried. Iruka remembered once, wishing he could be strong like her, because he always seemed to be crying when something went wrong.
Manmaru shook her head and swiped at the tears, trembling on her eyelashes. "Damnit, Iruka." She muttered. "You're not the only one who's afraid to die. But I've got a little brother and sister to protect, but I guess you've got no one. You only care about yourself and aren't going to fight to protect anyone in this whole goddamned village!" she snapped at him.
Iruka stared for a moment before snapping into another rebuttal. "I do care about other people!" He cried, struggling to sit up and glare at her. "I care about my mother and father!"
Manmaru glared back in reply and spat on his face. He flinched instinctively, but quickly swiped his hand over her face, wiping her saliva off. "You're a coward." She told him harshly. "You're a selfish, useless coward." She turned away, her back to him, looking up at the stars again.
"And you're a idiot. Your parents was dead. Dead. They a'int here no more and a'int coming back. They never will and you will never, ever see them again, no matter how much you want to and no matter how much you miss them." She turned her head to look at him, a sneer written across her face. "So," she asked him. "Are you going to take the coward's way out? You going to sit here and cry and whine about your dead parents while other, living people get killed?" She snorted. "Well, good riddance, then, when you get killed by a knife in the back. Your parents are dead. And sometimes there's somethings that are more important in life than mourning and clinging to memories. Because the dead are dead and they don't really care anymore."
"It's time." Tensaiji said, breaking the stiff silence that settled over them after Manmaru's last statement.
She nodded and leapt onto the tree branch beside him. He handed her the bag and they took off into the night, leaving Iruka sitting in the grass with her saliva and disapproval sticking to his face.
And that was the last him he'd ever seen her alive. They say she killed thirty people with a suicide jutsu she shouldn't have known anyway, though people were thankful she did.
Sometimes her words still came back to haunt him when he ran into her brother, the last of her family. Sometimes he thinks that she if she hadn't said dead people never came back from the grave, he might not have missed her so much. Sometimes Tensaiji will give him such an icy look when they pass in the streets, too.
He's a Jounin now, and Iruka's barely a Chunnin, but he was always a better shinobi, so it was only fair. Manmaru didn't deserve to die a Gennin, because she was so much better than Iruka, too. Sometimes he wishes he'd gone to fight and died there, with an honorable death. And sometimes he wishes he had come back alive with his team in tact and with scars to show his outer and inner pains. Sometimes he wishes he could have stopped her all together.
Sometimes he goes to visit the monument for heroes who died in battle. Her name is on there. Most of the time he sees Kakashi there, standing in front of it, sometimes talking so softly, talking to people who can't hear him anymore, and sometimes running his fingers over the surface of his teammates' names, rubbing them thin. Iruka does no such thing.
Manmaru had always been too proud for her own good. She'd have been insulted that he'd cried over her. She wouldn't want to see him standing there sulking and rubbing her name thin until it was almost gone. She'd yell at him and tell him not to wear away her name and make it unreadable, what kind of moron was he? Sometimes Iruka wants to tell Kakashi what she told him, when they're standing there in an uncomfortable silence.
That the dead don't really care anymore.
Because Iruka knows that Manmaru doesn't care if he visits her grave, or if Tensaiji misses her. Iruka knows that she doesn't really care if she changed him at all that night. She doesn't really care that he wants to show her Naruto and say "Ha! I do care about someone." He wants to snap his fingers in her face and sneer back at her and say that he protected this child, who is so much like him. But he doesn't, because he knows she wouldn't care, because she never really did.
But Iruka doesn't say those things to Kakashi, because maybe his teammates really did care. Maybe they still do. Or maybe it's because one of Kakashi's teammates is always, always, always with him, unlike Iruka's. But Iruka knows Manmaru doesn't care, at least, and that if she were still around she still wouldn't.
So Iruka just can't see why Naruto wants to bring Sasuke back so badly, or why Tsunade seems distant when there are discussions on Orochimaru's latest attacks, or why anyone even cares.
When he puts the teams together he doesn't expect them to turn out the way they do, in truth, he doesn't expect much from them at all, really. Sometimes they form unbreakable bonds. Sometimes they end up like Iruka's team. But Iruka does know that somethings, some secrets, are best left between the team.
Because no one else would understand.
So maybe that's why Kakashi always visits the memorial. Maybe that's why Tsunade is always talking with Jiraiya about Orochimaru. Maybe that's why Naruto and Sakura are always fighting too hard to find Sasuke. Maybe that's why Iruka's team fell apart. Because they weren't like that. They didn't have secrets, they didn't have bonds. They were just teammates. It should have been enough, but it wasn't. It never really is, in the end.