Chapter 3
Iruka was grading papers in the late afternoon when a certain blonde appeared suddenly on his casement, rattling the window pane as he forced it open from the outside. "Hi, Iruka-sensei," he greeted as he stuck his head through.
"Hello, Naruto." Iruka put his pen aside, and propped his chin in his palm with a smile.
The genin clamored inside without invitation, hopping lightly to the floor. Sometimes the teacher wondered why Konoha even bothered with such deterrents as doors, second story windows, and locking mechanisms; even the rawest academy student lost their sensibility for them.
The boy – who was really more a young man now, the teacher reluctantly admitted – went to pour himself a glass of juice before dragging out a chair from the table. He informed Iruka, "He hasn't given up yet."
"Kakashi?"
"Yeah. He keeps asking questions about you. It's pretty weird."
Iruka snorted. "Your new sensei is a bit of a stalker. One of his least charming pathologies, I think. And he's not very subtle about it either."
Naruto nodded his agreement, smirking. "He underestimates you," he commented. "Though to be fair, I think Kakashi-sensei is more the fighting type of ninja. You should see him." The young man beat the air with his fists, imitating the lifelike swishing and maiming sounds of the invisible debacle. Almost begrudgingly, Naruto confessed, "He's pretty cool."
Frowning slightly, Iruka shifted the papers on the table absently with the heel of his hand. "I've never seen him like that, but I'm sure Kakashi is an impressive warrior." He grinned lopsidedly. "He is, after all, the legendary copy-nin."
Naruto stared at him for a long moment before throwing a gangling arm around his teacher's shoulders. "Ah, Sensei, I still like you best."
Joking or not, Iruka warmed. Teachers inevitably harbored a left-behind feeling, and he appreciated the assurances. He didn't want to loose Naruto.
"I think he's lonely," the boy said suddenly, a touch of sadness in his voice. It didn't take much to connect the words to the man. Kakashi.
It was a very astute observation. Iruka gazed at him proudly; Naruto had grown to be such a compassionate young man.
The teacher considered. His own life was full of children. They depended on him to give advice, to cut the crust off, to scold bullies, to beat their little heads around simple lessons. He loved his job and his kids, but for a long time he'd had little else. He had few adult friends, and while the casual observer might argue that Kakashi wasn't much better than a five-year-old, Iruka had different memories.
Of a frozen gloaming, and tents in shadow. Empathy. It made him think maybe he was willing to take a chance on the copy-nin. Lonely?
Grinning shyly, Iruka confided, "Maybe me too."
As time passed slowly in a reel of days, one of the lingering questions that grew with their acquaintanceship remained: what was so different about Iruka-sensei's doppelgangers?
Kakashi examined this subject one afternoon as they reclined under the gruff but friendly Kurrajong. Above them the clouds drifted in a sky that was grey-blue like an inverted sea, preoccupying Kakashi with the wakes of cloud moving slowly past.
'Iruka,' meanwhile, sat hunched over a small knotted cord that Kakashi had given it to unravel. It was a training exercise, almost a game, but the clone was taking it very seriously. Kakashi watched it scowl ferociously as it studied the puzzle, knowing better than to offer assistance. He'd already tried once to take the rope away and just demonstrate how to unbind the knot, but the thing didn't just look like Iruka. Stubborn, stubborn.
"I need to have to talk with the Hokage about you," the copy-nin began conversationally. "I mean, I know that technically the Tojou Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is forbidden, but enough people know it these days that she should be aware of any odd –" The doppelganger looked up at him with Iruka's brown eyes, lively and intelligent and wholly aware. Kakashi finished carefully, "deviancy."
'Iruka' just grunted, refocusing on its task.
Out of curiosity, the jounin had tested his own clones to see if they showed as much personality as this one. Unfortunately, it had been an inconclusive experiment; the double he'd summoned had spent most of the time looking fatally bored. Possibly this meant Kakashi's clones were nothing out of the ordinary, lacking initiative, mere bodies. Or perhaps it had just been channeling his lazy side.
"Ibiki would be fascinated," Kakashi commented, almost to himself. "But he kind of scares me."
Shivering, the clone nodded.
Which was interested. "You spend much time with him?" the jounin asked.
'Iruka' shrugged, which Kakashi took to mean 'Relatively,' or possibly, 'None of your business.' It was hard to tell when you were communicating with someone's shoulder. He resisted a latent twinge of exasperation; not being able to speak certainly made it no easier to plague Iruka for answers.
Finally, the double held up the loose bit of string. It beamed, and Kakashi couldn't help but be amused by how delighted it seemed by the achievement. After that there was much pushing, prodding, and frowning as the clone pressed the rope back into his hand for retying. Obligingly, Kakashi took the cord and stroked it smooth, starting on another complicated loop and furrowed structure.
"Keep this up and you'll be ready to test for jounin," he teased good-naturedly, but Iruka frowned at him seriously, shaking his head. Kakashi took the refusal in stride, though for a moment his fingers stilled around the knot. Just once, he'd asked Iruka why he'd never advanced further in his training.
'Throat slitting does not a jounin make,' the teacher had responded. Then, he'd added, 'And…better I wasn't distinguished anyway, Kakashi.'
The copy-nin had understood what he hadn't said as much as what he had. Iruka didn't believe he had the skill to sustain a higher rank, and possibly he was right. Moreover, ability was only part of the equation. Jounin was a state of mind, and the teacher had made his choices long ago. He'd be a chuunin for the rest of his life, probably. However long or brief a time that might be.
Yet if the limitation ever bothered him, Iruka didn't say so. He was a unique person anyway, the warrior school teacher. He teased the clone, "Considering who you're made of, I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that you're really weird."
There wasn't the immediate scowl he'd expected, and the jounin noticed that the clone didn't seem to be paying attention. The ring of hemp forgotten in his lap, he asked, "Hey, what's wrong?"
A slight shake of the head, but the troubled look didn't pass away. 'Iruka' was casting his eyes around in a subtle swing. His companion joined him, stretching out with his senses. There was a dull thrum at first, nature alive with all its little jolts of charka. Instinctually his mind filtered out the ones that couldn't bleed, but even so it took him a moment to realize what had bothered his companion.
Tensing, he gently probed the pockets of absence rather than presence. Ah…
The moment they had to react was almost insufficient. It was impulse rather than skill that made him snag 'Iruka' by the shoulder and jerk him away from the tree, a gut reaction that had them hitting the ground in a cloud of grit just as a burst of flame erupted where they'd been. Then the air was full of splinters, and their camp was alive with moving bodies.
Assailants, three, it became apparent. They went straight for a death stroke, but sloppily. One lashed out hysterically towards the jounin's face, barely grazing his chin, and Kakashi had time to see the cheap charka-dampening tag bound on a pendant around his neck like a good luck charm.
The frenzy of the attack, the feel and smell of warm blood, made Kakashi suddenly think about the fragility of clones. Naruto's doppelgangers were like matchsticks; they never lasted long. He had even teased the boy that one of his greatest assets in battle was lack of visibility from all the smoke dissipating. Then, it had been funny. Now, it made every nerve ending in his body come on alert.
Where was Iruka?
A sound behind him, a familiar growl. One of their attackers had the clone backed up against the tree. He caught its eyes just as the clone struck the man with a carefully controlled strike to the throat, dropping the bandit like a stone. Wide brown rings, panic: 'Look out, Kakashi!'
The jounin swiveled like a dancer, and then his assailant crunched with splintering bones and very likely a growing regret. They were third of fourth generation charka-users without any training, bullies who used their latent strength to murder and steal. Today they'd chosen the wrong camp.
Not feeling particularly threatened, it took Kakashi by surprise when the clone suddenly barreled into him. Struck off balance, he began to say, "Iruka –" but then there was a throwing knife like a death-bringer. Towards Iruka's throat rather than his own neck.
In a motion to fast too see, Kakashi snatched the blade out of the air, a finger's width from the clone's artery. Even as he did, his momentum was moving him past. He had the last invader pinned against the tree in the time it took the unfortunate to rattle out his last breath. Then his spine separated with a soft sound and Kakashi let him go, panting harshly.
Between his fingers, blood dripped around a serrated knife.
A hand touched his elbow, and he turned to face his unharmed ally. The clone was grinning, unfazed by what had happened. Adrenaline still burning, Kakashi didn't fight the fury that flared up inside him.
Angry, he gripped 'Iruka' by the collar, demanding, "What were you thinking? Don't you know you'd go up like smoke?" A weak voice chanted denial somewhere in the back of his head – 'Clone. It's just a clone'- but it was overwhelmed by the echo of a blade in the air, and the soft thump of a recently dead body slumping to the ground. Lividly, he shouted, "Don't be so suicidal!"
The clone freed himself with an awkward jerk. It gripped it's own neck, gesturing at Kakashi. As though that excused it. As though saving him from some minor knick justified such stupidity.
"I'd have been fine, unlike you." The words left Kakashi rashly, "I can't watch you every minute!"
Infuriated in his own right, Iruka's double stomped its foot: 'You shouldn't have come, you shouldn't have come.' At least a lazy, self-serving insentient wouldn't have thought Iruka needed a babysitter. In the heat of the moment, Kakashi's furor reared up in agreement; better that he had never come.
"You're just a chuunin," he hissed, and in that moment, with his blood rushing in his ears and his heart pounding crazy fear, and his hand wet with blood from far too close a call, he didn't know quite who he was talking too. The mirror was too good.
Iruka's face was set in lines – hard and hurt. It jerked a finger at him fervently, and Kakashi could practically hear its declaration: 'I don't need a protector. Who do you think I am?'
Unrepentant, the jounin set his face like a rolling storm, still angry, too angry. 'Iruka' saw it too, and slowly its eyes shifted from blazing to disappointed. It gave him one last look – 'You stupid ass' – and then left down the path to the spring so that Kakashi was left by himself in their camp, now a dusty, torn-up trampled with strangers' footprints.
Almost unsteadily, Kakashi lurched toward the lone tree, bracing himself against it with one hand.
The poor Kurragong looked splintered, and blackened at the base where the burst of heat had scorched the scaly bark. There wasn't much chance he and Iruka would be sitting beneath it any longer. Kakashi cursed, himself and nature and that damned thing – attachment.
Everything that lived eventually died.
It was dark when 'Iruka' returned to camp, long after the cool shadows had crept up and Kakashi had resorted to a blaze of dry wood to keep his melancholy from swallowing him like a physical presence. The clone slipped into the firelight with a crunch of footfalls, dropping beside the silver-haired nin.
A restless fidget betrayed its unease, and when Kakashi deigned to face it, he was met with an expression thick with unhappiness. It was a look that clearly stated, 'You're mad at me.'
Kakashi wouldn't deny that he'd been angry. He was still mad, but the adrenaline had slowly dissipated. He'd had time to realize how ridiculously out of proportion his reaction had been. They'd been ambushed by a handful of smalltime murderer-thieves; embarrassing, but hardly life threatening. That wasn't the real issue.
The real problem was that he was still treating Iruka as though he were breakable, and that crossed a line that would effectively destroy any hope of real friendship between them – between him and the real Iruka.
Fighting down the surge of bile that rose in his throat, Kakashi cursed himself again, wondering when he had allowed himself to care so much about this thing and its origin. Head bowed, he admitted, "I shouldn't have yelled at you."
'Iruka' nodded firmly, but in the place of indignation was concern. It placed a warm hand carefully on Kakashi's forearm. 'Are you okay?'
"You scared me," the copy-nin admitted. "I know you're just a figment, that you only look like him. But if they'd managed to destroy you…" He trailed off, disgusted. What a ridiculous conversation.
However, 'Iruka' smiled at him out of his eyes. Touched, grateful.
Kakashi wasn't soothed. Around him the darkness seemed to trespass, partner to his dark rumination. His thoughts were muddled. "Do you remember asking me about this?" he queried suddenly, tracing his eye beneath the metal plate with the pad of his thumb.
When the clone affirmed him, Kakashi continued, "I was cold before then, but that was the easy part. After Obito died, I remembered what loss felt like, and that was harder. Caring about people is hard." He stared rigidly at the glowing ash, burning with a memory. He inquired, "Do you remember your father well, Iruka?"
A quiet, hesitating nod.
Kakashi snorted bitterly. "It's amazing how many orphans there are, isn't it? Our people die at the hands of the enemy, and those that survive, we shame into the grave."
'Iruka' wouldn't even look at him then.
Kakashi finished, "You'd have liked my father, Iruka. You'd have appreciated his philosophy and the reason they killed him." His voice tapered off, and he felt unexplainably heavy. His head sunk against his chest. "People are cruel."
Poke.
Worried, the clone nudged him with sharp fingers, leaning forward in an attempt to peer into the jounin's face. It was funny how much a wordless conversation could say. An odd smile crept up on Kakashi, and he wondered if he were going crazy. That happened to men stuck alone on islands. What about one stuck in the desert with a ghost?
He wagered, "You know all about how cruel life can be, don't you, Iruka? I'm sitting here waiting for you to come back from a mission that may end in torture for you, whatever blather the Godaime gave about it being purely for information."
'Iruka' vacillated for a bit, before nodding. It bit its lip. Maybe.
The jounin continued, looking at his companion with admiration. "You know all about caring about people, too. You challenge things." It seemed like such simple statement, but it was essential Iruka. He murmured, "It's no wonder you sympathize so much with that ramen-grazing brat."
It was good to see a break in the storm. 'Iruka' smiled, donning what the jounin had mentally dubbed his Naruto-face. It was affectionate with just a hint of pride. A very parental look, really. Iruka and the kyuubi vessel shared something unique – not brotherhood, exactly – but something like it and all their own. It was enough to make Kakashi a little jealous, honestly. His own family…his father.
'Iruka' slumped against his shoulder with a sigh, as though to say, 'Isn't life difficult.' It was such a contrast to the cold shoulders and heated arguments of their early days together that Kakashi covered his face, rumbling with laughter. When the clone turned its face up inquiringly, he told it, "I think I'm growing on you, hm? You haven't committed an act of violence in days."
The being huffed, rolling its eyes in a very graphic 'Just wait,' but it was a different kind of threat than before; it was the kind a friend made.
'Iruka' grimaced into his shoulder as the jounin teased him and Kakashi felt certain that something had changed. All while he remained internally mystified that one could grow so close to someone while they were so far away.