When Umino Iruka was eleven, he graduated from the Academy with a reputation for being somewhat lucky. Iruka didn't consider himself lucky, but he knew others did. If he was so lucky, then why were both his parents dead? Other people thought that he was lucky, because HE wasn't dead, despite having run out of the safety of the caverns, and into the battle zone with the Kyuubi. He had managed to actually locate his parents in the chaos, before they had fallen foul of the rampaging demon. But he had been forcibly removed from the area without getting any kind of injury. In fact, despite developing a certain recklessness after the deaths of his parents, he didn't seem to get injured very often at all.

His friend Mizuki used to complain about it. He couldn't understand why Iruka didn't get hurt more often. It didn't seem particularly fair. Iruka didn't really care. The fact that he should have been hurt more often than he was never really troubled him. He was too busy making sure that people paid attention to him. Getting hurt would have been a small price to pay.

If there were times when Mizuki and Iruka snuck off to practice throwing shuriken or kunai and Iruka would turn to find Mizuki staring into the trees looking angry and frustrated, he thought no more of it. He assumed one of the other boy's throws had gone completely wild. Although he did think it was kind of weird that Mizuki never went to the place he was looking to find the missing weapon. It was even more weird that Mizuki went to collect weapons in the opposite direction to which he had been glaring. But then Mizuki was kind of weird, so Iruka shrugged it off.

The fact that Iruka had a propensity to run around outside the protective wards of Konoha caused him to be on the receiving end of more danger than other boys his age. Not having any parents to tell him off for doing risky things, he gained a reputation amongst the other genin for bravery, recklessness and sheer luck.

He came across enemy shinobi sniffing around the surrounding areas of Konoha more than once, yet he always managed to get away safely. It did help that he could run like the wind, but he seemed to be able to reach safety without incident far more easily than was reasonable. And he had enough luck that help seemed to find him when he really needed it.

Once he had heard the sounds of pursuit change into the sounds of fighting, and had cautiously, heart in his throat, doubled back to go see. He had found the enemy shinobi unconscious or dead on the ground, with a young ANBU standing over them, bloody kunai in his hand. The ANBU had turned his dog-masked face towards Iruka and Iruka had fled.

Another time Iruka had been skulking where he shouldn't have been and had found himself running from a group of unknown shinobi again. While he was still a genin he'd seen enough combat to be able to quickly assess the enemy, and what he saw terrified him. He'd turned tail to flee, but even as he ran he was certain that this time he wasn't going to be able to successfully reach safety though sheer speed alone. His thoughts raced as he tried to think of any tricks he might have up his sleeve to slow down the pursuit. Explosive tags could only do so much, although he utilised all that he had to the best of his ability.

The enemy drew inexorably closer.

He was having a harder and harder time dodging the kunai and shuriken being thrown at him. These enemies weren't trying to catch him to gain information about Konoha. They were trying to kill him. Whatever they were up to, they were intent on remaining undiscovered. Iruka knew he was outclassed.

He knew the terrain as well as anyone from Konoha did, and he used it as best he could. He was managing to stay ahead of them, to stay out of killing range. But they were definitely closing in. Just when he knew that it was about to end, that he was going to be hit by a weapon or jutsu that he simply couldn't dodge, an ANBU had dropped out of nowhere between him and the pursuing shinobi.

"Run," the ANBU had said, even as he threw a barrage of kunai at the pursuers. Iruka had done as he had been instructed. This time he was so terrified he didn't pause to watch the ensuing fight, he just ran, but he was certain it was the same ANBU who had saved him once before. When he found more ANBU clearly looking for something, or someone, he had pointed them in the direction he had come from, and had kept running as if his life depended on it, until he reached the safety of Konoha.

Iruka might be reckless, but he also wasn't stupid. After this last experience he curtailed his excursions. He also started taking his training more seriously. It was easy to forget, when you were surrounded by genin, and taking predominantly D Class missions, that there were some very scary people in the world. Even if he was never going to be particularly strong, he wanted to be more capable than he was, to be better.

He appreciated his own limitations. He knew he wasn't a genius, like some shinobi. There was an Uchiha boy a few years younger than he was who had graduated the academy at seven. From what Iruka had heard it wouldn't be long before they had him sit the chuunin exams. Iruka had even heard there was one boy who'd become a chuunin at six. Six! When Iruka was six he had been blissfully running around skinning his knees and catching fireflies. But at fourteen and still a genin he was wasting his time. He could still improve his skills within his own limitations.

He stopped wasting time.


to be continued...