Ok this is an Authors note, I wanted to make a rewrite of this for a while and I know it's taken a really long time but this is the new version of MizuMew…Hope you like it .
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Umino Iruka sat on his bed looking through a leather bound book of photographs. Many of them were of his family, his parents, and his friends from child hood. He flipped through the plastic covered pages with great care, looking at each image with a sort of sad longing in his eyes.
He stopped at one particular picture and looked at it much longer than the others. The image was slightly faded with time, bleached from the year or two that it was in a frame sitting by his bed. It was him at age 13 dirty, grungy, covered in slashes and bruised almost beyond recognition holding up his hand in the sign of victory next to an equally bruise covered 14 year old boy with white hair and bright blue eyes.
A smile pulled at his lips and he ran his tan fingertips fondly over the old Photograph. The smile faded though, almost as quickly as it came, and in its place came the prickling bun of tears. He realized that no matter how long he looked at these photos, he would never come back. He realized that he would never see that wide toothy smile, nor hear the bright laugh, nor see the sun catch in his nearly silver hair as s breeze tossed it about his face. But the thing that mad the tears fall, that which pushed him over the edge was knowing that never again, not ever would he ever see those shimmering, warm, knowing, funny, joy filled blue eyes. Blue as frost, or as sun shining through a glacier
He put the album down and hugged himself tight around the chest as the sobs broke through him. His dark hair fell around his face as he leaned forward , his heart ached and he couldn't make it better, nothing made it better, not even the spot of determined sunshine that was Naruto, and Gods knew that the young ninja tried his best to make Iruka's life just a little lighter. He took a deep gasping breath and whipped the tears away from his face. Several steadying breaths got him back to the real world. The real world, in which he was a teacher living by himself in his parent's old house and had to teach classes tomorrow.
He sighed again and ran his fingers through his hair, for a moment he looked longingly at the pillows on the other side of the bed…the tears mad a momentary reappearance, he quelled them before they could fall. He put the album on the table next to his bed and turned off the lamp. He pulled one of the pillows to his chest and breathed deep the smell that clung to it. Slowly he fell asleep, some times pushed back to wakefulness by the dreams that plagued him.
Beyond the window of the bedroom a pair of bright blue eyes watched him carefully. Wondering if the small brown skinned man would ever have a goodnights sleep again. The man at the window shivered a little, he knew that he was the reason for those dreams, that Iruka was recalling his "death" that in the teachers mind he was gone for all of time and would never be seen by any one ever again. He supposed it was for the best though; after all he was working for the ….man…who wanted to kill every person in this village. He watched for a few more moments as Iruka tossed and turned in thei… His bed.
"Touji!!" came a whispered yell "We have to go, the others have been caught!" He looked in the direction of the yell and snarled a little. He looked once more in the window and put a small waxy flower down on the sill and jumped down running towards his coworker. He ran quickly, scooping up his bag on the way. He'd endangered the mission, but…it had been worth it, it was worth it just to see him, no matter how dire the consequence for the action he'd taken…
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The shrill call of the alarm clock woke Iruka from his troubled sleep at around 5 in the morning, he grumbled and turned it off heaving himself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom. He relieved himself, then brushed his teeth and pulled a brush through his mussed and tangled brown hair.
He hated Mondays, Monday's were always the worst day of the week. Not only did it mean weekend home work handed in, it also meant that there would be sleep deprived pre-teens with excuses about why they didn't have the Home work finished and ready to turn in.
He pulled his long sleeved shirt on and then his vest, he dashed to the other side of his room and yanked on his pants and sandals. As he passed the window some thing caught his eye. Some thing white on the dark sill of his window, he pulled open the window and picked up the Waxy little white flower with pink staining the very tips of the petals.
His eyes went wide as he looked down at the small flower in his hand, dusted lightly with morning dew. His knees buckled and he leaned heavily against the wall next to the window. He turned and looked out the window, searching desperately for some sign of him, some sign that he'd been here, that he was alive that he was well, that he hadn't died at the end of the spell, what the potion had done to him.
There was nothing there, nothing to tell him who had put the lotus there, or when. He shook his head and held tight to the little flower, and closed the window. He had to be at school. He looked out the window one last time before leaving for school. He kept the flower close in his hand as he walked to his job.
As the class room began to fill up he looked longingly at the seat next to him. It was going to be a long day, but it would be better today, so much better. He smiled and looked at the Lotus that he'd set in a shallow bowl of water. Just knowing that he might have been there, that he remembered such a small thing, it made things all the better and the day just that much brighter.
He smiled as he stood and began the days lesson. It looked like, the world could only get brighter from here on out.