Live Forever With the Memories
A one-shot by lotus-nin
Slight AU in which Iruka is a girl, Neji is alive, and Sasuke is not evil.
Contains slight NejiTen, NaruHina, SasuSaku
Main Ship: KakaIru, KakaFem!Iruka, Irukakashi [all the same thing BTW]
I'm not on drugs tho!
Disclaimer is not necessary; if I owned Naruto, well, let's just say very bad [and also very good, if ya know what I mean] things would happen.
"And that was the first time I saw them!"
They were talking about the first time Kakashi saw her breasts.
"You pervert!" Iruka playfully hit him over the head.
They had started to date about 2 years ago, and Kakashi decided to give his very special girlfriend a very special gift.
It was not sex. [*Waves to perverts out there*]
Inside was set up as a traditional Japanese Zen garden, except life-size.
Iruka sighed contentedly as she leaned into her boyfriend's warm chest. "What is this, Kashi?"
"Just a little something I put together, 'cuz I was bored." he replied lazily, stroking her hair.
For the next hour they wandered the stone paths, Iruka bending down to sniff the flowers while Kakashi fingered the small box in his pocket nervously.
"Ruka, can I ask you something?" She spun around to face him.
"What is it, Kashi-chan?"
"Do you mind going on a mission with me?"
She was shell-shocked, but whatever. This was her Kashi, the man she loved, and she would do anything for him.
But what the hell was up with the garden?
"Sure! Can I see the info paper?"
Mission: Get married to Hatake Kakashi.
Reward: A ring, a loving husband, mayybe some kids, all the editions of Icha Icha Paradise, etc.
She gasped and glanced back at Kakashi. He was on one knee, and held an open box to her.
"Umino Iruka, will you marry me?"
Her response was a kiss. He slipped the ring on her finger and wrapped his arms around her thin waist.
She broke the kiss, panting, and breathed, I love you, and tackled him to the floor, all the while making out with him.
He traced his finger in her hair. Me too.
She sat up on top of him and gave him a half smile. "I'll pass on the Icha-Icha for now, though!"
|Time Skip|
"HATAKE KAKASHI! YOU GODDAMN WHORE OF A MAN! YOU PUT THIS THING INSIDE OF ME , AND YOU WILL TAKE IT OUT!" Iruka screamed. She was in labor with their first child, with Sakura aiding them.
"It's okay, Ruka." he tried [and failed] to soothe the woman by holding her hand. He regretted it instantly. Iruka grasped onto it with an iron grip, cracking a few bones. "Ouch, Iruka-chan, please let go." he pouted with fake tears in his eyes.
"Oh, sorry, Kashi! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to-" A flash of her old self and she was back to the screaming woman as another painful contraction pushed through her. "SCREW YOU, HATAKE! WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU USE A FUCKING CONDOM ON OUR WEDDING NIGHT! FUCK YOU, HATAKE! WHY DID YOU SEDUCE ME! I TOLD YOU I WAS A VIRGIN WHO WASNT ON THE PILL BUT DID YOU LISTEN TO ME? OH, NOO. SCREW RESTORING THE CLAN! WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T WE ADOPT?!"
Then she started to cry. "It hurts, Kashi! Wahhh~"
Sakura just rolled her eyes. Kakashi looked mortified. "Nothing I haven't seen," the medical-nin mouthed to him.
Fucking moodswings, he mouthed back.
"Okay, Iruka-sensei. Just one more push, and you're clear!" she tried to sound optimistic. "I can see the head already!"
Iruka grunted with the pain, and slowly, a miniature body slipped out of her womb and into Sakura's arms.
"Do you want to cut the umbilical cord?" she said in a reverent tone to Kakashi.
He snapped out of his trance and nodded dumbly.
Maybe Sakura had this type of thing every day, being a medic-nin, but there was just something more in seeing both her former teachers' baby.
"He's beautiful.." he whispered to his drowsy wife. He carried her in a blanket to his mother.
"Look, Ruka! He has the Sharingan!"
The baby opened his red and gray eyes. His head was dusted with a fine, powdery white.
Though in looks he favored his father, the years to come proved that he was, in fact, socially adapted like his mother.
"What shall we name him, love?" he choked in emotion as he watched his, no, their, baby latch onto one of Iruka's breasts, the ones that had captivated him so long ago.
"The name we decided earlier, or did you forget it?" she teased gently. "Ayame, or red eye, named after your red eyes."
"He's beautiful..." Kakashi trailed off, tears in his eyes, a smile on his face, and watched his two most beloved people in the world drift off to sleep.
|Time Skip|
"Hey, Kakashi?" Iruka called from the upstairs loft of their home. "I think... I think I'm going to take a mission."
"What?!" Surprised, he tromped up from his office and flew up the stairs, crushing his wife in a half-embrace. "Whyever would you want to? Are you tired of seeing this," he pointed to this face,"not to mention handsome face everyday?" Kakashi grinned under the mask.
"Not if you keep it covered all the time!" she blushed and bit her lip. "It's just that it's been so
long since I've been on one, and... yeah..."
She did get her chance, however. Kakashi offered to go with her, and she retaliated with that bit of spunk she always had, that Kakashi had always loved.
She should have accepted his request to go with her.
It was only a simple B-Rank mission, one that a chuunin of Iruka's caliber could easily conquer.
The mission information said nothing about the missing S-class-nins that pursued the scroll that Iruka was supposed to carry to safety under the eye of the Kazekage.
If it had, there would be no broken hearts involved.
|On the Mission|
Blood everywhere, and most of it was Iruka's.
Kunai of various sizes and shapes were strewn across the clearing.
I am a ninja kunoichi, she said to herself with false confidence. I should be able to obliterate these guys!
It was hopeless. 3 Ex-ANBUs against one academy teacher.
A stray kunai hit her in the back, where most of her protective padding was. However, the mere force of it was enough to throw Iruka across the clearing.
As she skidded to a halt, she realized she would never win this battle. She would never again see her beloved family.
And for what?
A stupid scroll.
She had read it on the way here, out of sheer boredom.
It contained a very strong jutsu, used only by the Kages of the Villages.
It could only be used once, due to massive chakra drain and/or death.
It was one of the spells the Fourth used to defeat the Kyuubi.
Should she use it?
The choice was hers, kill or be killed.
She formed the hand signs, and saw the terror on her enemies' faces. Obviously they recognized it. Which meant they knew what their fate was.
Good, she thought. It was their fault she would never see her family and friends again.
"SHADOW STYLE: UNDERWORLD SHADOW PULL!"
This left their bodies on the ground, but their souls were forever with Hades.
With no chance of revival.
She hardly had time to gasp as the white and green-gray blur enveloped her in his arms, and she blacked out from blood and chakra loss.
She felt a shaking of her shoulders, and squinted in the sunset as she looked into the face of Hatake Kakashi.
"I should've been there to save you," he moaned. "I should've been quicker!"
"Kakashi." she whispered in a hoarse voice. "Don't blame yourself. I never should've taken this mission."
"I never should have let you go!" And Iruka looked on as Konoha's great copy-nin broke down in front of her, sobbing. She half-closed her eyes, and felt the tears pelt her face.
"Don't leave me!" Kakashi screamed to the heavens; to Kami himself.
Iruka smiled, basking in the glow that meant the life force was leaking out of her battered body, because the last thing she would see in this world was her beloved husband, her Kashi-kun.
"Kashi, always remember that... that I love you." she sighed, and said no more, saw no more, heard no more, felt no more, and loved no more.
Kakashi slowly met his lips to his wife's one last time, slowly pulling himself out of the initial shock, and carried his wife of 19 years back to Konoha, bridal style, like the way he had done so long ago, at their wedding, the happiest day of his life.
The difference?
Not two hearts joined as one, but only half a heart, and this one was shattered into innumerable pieces.
This was the last time he kissed her.
|After Iruka's funeral|
Iruka had been a polite, kind teacher.
All her students loved her. So did the other shinobi, due to her positive manner and smile.
In short, Iruka was easily Konoha's most beloved chuunin.
Used tissues scattered the ground.
Anyone who attended the funeral could tell you that the almost entire of Konoha had attended.
Naruto had his arm around a sobbing Hinata, while his own face was tear-streaked.
Sakura had her face in her hands, kneeling towards the grave, and even the normally stoic Sasuke had to hold back tears.
Tenten and Neji had cradled their baby, softly telling him about how much Iruka meant to them.
Ayame had looked upon his mother's face one last time, and cried for the first time in his life.
To many of them, Hatake-Umino Iruka was more was more than a teacher.
To Naruto, she was the first to fully accept him.
To Sasuke, she was a relative in place of the ones massacred so long ago.
To Hinata and Sakura, she was a support.
To Tenten, she was a believer.
To Neji, she was a carer.
To Ayame, she was a mother.
And a wife to Kakashi.
Only one living could be seen in the vicinity of the now-deserted graveyard.
Kneeling over his late wife's grave, he decided that there would be no tears.
Of course he was devastated.
But when you think about it,
Would Iruka want to be remembered that way?
As a weak kunoichi?
She would want her loved ones to be happy.
Not to cry for her.
He considered rejoining ANBU again, just to dull the pain.
But Iruka would never forgive him for leaving their son alone, like his father before him.
As the tears started to pool in his eyes...
Kakashi could almost imagine her sigh.
"Why are you crying? Don't be sad for me! We'll meet again... my love."
So he sucked it up and stood up, shakily albeit strong.
Iruka was his one and only love.
He would never forget the happy moments with her, and he whisked the sad ones away.
She was his everything.
At least, everything he would need in this life.
His end.
His beginning.
His love.
Many could say that marrying Iruka was one of the best things that ever happened to Hatake Kakashi.
Nay, she was the best thing.
Before, he only cared about himself, needed himself, saw himself.
Then came Iruka.
She broke that barrier he put in between himself and the world.
She let sunshine into his brain filled with cobwebs.
She gave him a family.
She gave him a life.
But, in return, he let hers get stolen from her.
Never again would she kiss him lovingly.
Never again would she smile for him.
Never again would she breathe that energy into him.
With her gone, a part of him was missing.
It was not only his heart.
It was his soul.
When Umino Iruka first met him, she wormed her way into his mind and stayed there.
He couldn't go a day without thinking of her.
He knew that though Iruka was dead in body, she was alive in soul.
Her legacy remained unperturbed.
His only regret?
He would have to live forever with the memories.
:FIN:
2k+ words! Wow, never written that much in a chapter before!
Most of my stories are up for adoption.
Go check my profile for details.
~lotus-nin