Chapter 4: Welcome to Konoha, Gaara! Well, sort of…
"Well, we're finally here, thank you Kami." an exhausted Anko said, "To think that I was at the breaking point to hurt the boy." Anko pointed at Gaara on Iruka's arms. Kurenai just gave her jounin friend a disapproving shake of her head.
"It's not his fault, Anko, he's just a baby and in order to communicate he needs to cry."
"Yeah, our poor buddy, Iruka, here," pointed Kakashi, "has tried his best to make Gaara stop crying."
"Either way, it still didn't work, just look at the child looks like he's going to pass out any minute. Hey Iruka when's the last time the boy slept?" asked Asuma as he was observing the baby from his point of view.
He saw that Gaara was struggling to go to sleep on top of Iruka's Chunin's vest as a pillow but seemed to not prevail.
"Well…the last time he slept was actually the day before I adopted him, in the morning before walking with Kurenai around Suna." answered Iruka, "I'm starting to worry."
"You…should…be, Iruka." coughed Hayate, "Is there...something…you plan…to do?"
"Yeah, Iruka it's been what three days? Since the baby slept that is for sure not healthy." added Kurenai.
"I honestly have no idea," Iruka replied and then looked at his sensei, "Shikaku-sensei, what do you think I should do to Gaara?"
"Well, take him to the hospital ASAP since were already here in Konoha, they should at least find the reason for the child to not sleep. Well, enough of that everybody is dismissed, I will take care of the mission report to the Hokage." Shikaku said and then got nods from his crew and they walked away and moved on with their live …all except Iruka and Kurenai,
"Look, Iruka, don't kill yourself over this little dilemma just go see if the doctors or medic-nin can see what is wrong with him, ok."
"Yes, sensei, I will go to the hospital right now," commented the young Chunin, "Kurenai want to come with?"
Kurenai nodded
"Sure, that's what teammates are for right?"
"Alright then off you guys go I will be in the Hokage's office for a while so if you guys need anything find me there." with that said Nara disappeared in a smoke of swirled leaves.
"Bwahhh…wahhh." Gaara started to cry as Iruka and Kurenai started to head towards the hospital.
"Shhh…Gaara I'm right here don't cry." consoled Iruka as he was rocking the baby gently in order to comfort him.
"Hey, feed him some warm milk maybe that would make him cry less." suggested his teammate.
"Ok can you grab the bottle from my bag, I would but you know…" explained Iruka as he nudging his head towards the crying baby.
"I know, Iruka, I can clearly see that. I'm surprised that there's left over formula."
"Yeah, I bought a descent amount to last about two weeks for the little guy." said Umino, "There should be a bottle with left-over water at least."
"I got everything, here feed the baby while we head to the hospital." Kurenai commented.
"Wahhh….ughh…aghh (slurp…)" Gaara was silence once he started to drink his formula.
"Man, Gaara looks like he's going to die of sleep deprive, I see baggage's forming in his eyes, almost looking like he's wearing eyeliner." Gaara's adopted father acknowledged it and stopped walking in order to get a look in Gaara's eyes as well as his teammate.
"Your right, wonder what's wrong him?" questioned Kurenai. She and Iruka continued walking until they saw the sight of the Konoha Hospital.
"Well, there's the hospital Iruka, I have to go home and clean up, I'll talk to you later." Began Kurenai, "Make sure you tell me on his condition as soon as you leave the hospital, ok."
"Yeah, you bet, thanks for walking with me to the hospital Kurenai." Thanked the Umino.
"No problem, I'll do anything to help a fellow teammate and his fellow adopted son, heheh" laughed Kurenai as she padded Gaara's head and waved bye as she was heading home. "Bye."
"Bye" Iruka waved back, and then stared at his son and smiled, "Looks like I'm not going to be the only one who's going to worry about you, little Gaara." and with that he went inside the Konoha hospital.
"Hello, welcome to Konoha Hospital, my name is Tohru Kamasaki, how I may help you today?" greeted the nurse.
That had medium, straight black hair all tied up in a high ponytail and wore a white nurse cap along with a white nursing outfit and she had hazel eyes.
"Hey, the name is Iruka Umino and I need to see a doctor immediately it's an emergency. I had the baby for a while and he hasn't slept in days regardless of what I do." explained the chunnin.
"Okay, before we start, where is the boy's parents?" asked the nurse.
"I'm legally his adopted father…" began Iruka before he stopped and looked at the nurse, who was giving him this unbelievable look.
"Did you just say that you're his…adopted father?" asked the nurse.
"Yeah, I have the paperwork with me as proof if you don't believe me." answered Iruka, "Is that a problem Miss?"
"Not really, but aren't you…you know a little bit young to take care of a baby?"
"Well, he was abandoned in his village and decided to take him in, you know to start maturing." was Iruka's reply, "Can I see a doctor, now?" he demanded.
"Umm…ohh…yeah, follow me." instructed the nurse as she was leading Iruka and Gaara to a doctor in a white hallway filled with workers and visitors.
The nurse then stopped in front of a door that said the doctor's name.
"Here's the office of Doctor Kureno, he isn't busy so he could help you with the baby just go right ahead." she inquired as she was beginning to depart.
"Thank you very much." responded Iruka and then looked down at Gaara who was just staring at the Chunin with a hassled-tiring look in his eyes, which made Iruka frown, "Well, Gaara it looks like we're going to find out why you can't sleep, but I promise that you will sleep in no time."
'I have to because no human can survive without sleeping in some point.' he thought and then Iruka opened the door to lure him inside the doctor's office.
"Hello there Shikaku, glad that you came back in one piece along with your team from your mission." said the Sandaime Hokage.
He was wearing his usual white robe that let people know that he was the Hokage along with red on his robes as well. He was smoking his pipe before Shikaku came in to report on their mission.
"Yes, Lord Hokage, luckily we did not resort to any violence while in Suna." reported Shikaku.
He then handed the old man a folder in which contained the report of their trip to Suna. The Hokage opened it and started to read on what the shadow specialist wrote.
"Hm…it would appear that the Kazekage was denying the rumors that we heard about….figures as much." stated the Third.
"Even if he did deny them, my team and I had sense that he was lying and that he wasn't being honest with us." interrupted Shikaku.
"Hmph…I would have sense the same thing as well if I were in your position." the Third said, " was there something else suspicious going on while your team were in Suna, other than what you have reported here about the abandoned child?"
"Well, the Kazekage seemed that he was hesitating or having second thoughts on when asked about the child. I had asked him to let us introduced to his third child in which was born a couple months ago, but he came up with a story saying that he had died a few weeks ago." answered the Nara.
"That just raises more suspicion on the Kazekage, there had been no reports or news on the passing of the Kage's baby." informed Sarutobi, "It's always breaking news on hearing the death of a family related to the Kage's in all the ninja villages."
"You're right Lord Hokage, but what do we do now? There is nothing we could do to make the Kazekage accept the rumors and stating them that there are true. Though there is clear evidence that they were planning on creating a human weapon in order to destroy fellow villages." said Shikaku.
"Yes, and there's the fact that they wanted our fellow shinobi's to adopt the abandoned child." commented the Third.
"Certainly, Hokage, as it turns out Iruka, a student of mine, had decided to adopt him, despite how young he is." explained the Jounin, "Just recently, the baby has not been sleeping well…I mean he hasn't slept at all for a couple of days ever since the morning when we confronted the Kazekage about the baby."
"I would have never believed that Iruka Umino, the prankster of Konoha, would ever consider on having kids at this age. And he's already having an issue with the baby boy…something's not right here." said Sandaime.
"Lord Hokage, do you think that the baby might be a demon container?" asked Shikaku, "I had heard of weak seals being used on humans in order to jail a demon, but one of the side effects is that the demon host cannot fall asleep for one second."
The Hokage was deep in thought considering on what the Jounin had said and took a long smoke from his pipe and blowing out the smoke from his mouth which indicated that he was really thinking.
'What exactly is Suna planning? What if this baby is a demon container, our village cannot have two demon hosts, and we are not sure on the strength of the seal that the child from Suna is. He might lose it and destroy our village.' was the thoughts of the old man before Shikaku broke out of his thoughts,
"Sir, what do you plan to do with the child?"
"Hmmm….Iruka can have the child and raise him, but no one must not know of the boy's possibility of jailing a demon, just like Naruto. Since Iruka is the boy's adopted father, you must tell him to report to my office after he has settled in with the baby for more questioning. Understood?" demanded the Hokage and Shikaku nodded, "I will put some ANBU ninjas to keep close eye on the boy in secret after the meeting with Iruka, we need to see if the infant is any future threat to our village."
"Yes, Lord Hokage, but if we did somehow find out that the village hidden in the Sand is planning to attack us with the boy as their weapon, wouldn't that just further break the peace treaty we had for each other and cause another war?" questioned the Nara.
"Let's just hope that none of this is true and that another war will never happen so soon." answered the Third, taking another smoke from his pipe.
'Pray that the boy is no demon container.' he thought before dismissing the Jounin.
Chapter Preview:
Chapter 5: Iruka's Influence!
Everyone in Iruka's apartment suddenly stared at Kakashi with a shocked expression in their faces, their jaws seemed to drop to the floor from the news that the copy ninja announced. Kakashi for the first time in a long time started to get worried.
"What?" he asked. All was quiet until Anko spoke up,
"You can't be serious right?"
"Yeah, I'm serious why do you ask that?" Hatake asked.
"Oh I don't know maybe it's because….YOU DON'T HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT TO DO! IS IDIOTIC!" yelled Anko, by then everybody in the room w ere covering their ears from the sudden outburst from the snake ninja.
"Calm down, Anko, will ya?" said Asuma.
"Yeah, it's Gaara's first day of actually going to sleep and your yelling is going to wake him up." argued Iruka.
"Geez…sorry but really Kakashi, you're really going to do it?" Anko asked.
"Yeah, the process has already started." answered the copy ninja.
"I don't know if your actually doing this out of kindness or the fact that Iruka, a Chunin, has influenced an elite jounin like you to do is." commented Kurenai, and that's when everybody really want to question the Hatake.
There's the small preview, take a guess on what was Kakashi's announcement.