Author's Note: Konichiwa everybody! Pyrokineticsiren-san here! Back from her ultra long writing hiatus and ready to GO!! Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. I took me a while to get it all sorted out but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Thank god for Wolf's Rain, that anime helps me keep my sanity! XP hope this chappy ain't too confuzzling!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters! SO THERE! XP NYAH!!!!

Chapter Four- Iruka's Past Dream

Iruka drifted unwillingly in his dreams, a slight fever racking his brain. He gripped at his throbbing temple, trying to still the disturbing images that were flashing in front of his eyes.

He saw himself as a boy. He was in that room again. The room were all the bad boys go. The ones who pull pranks and crave attention…

That empty room, with the dark corners and the little window.

He sheepishly walked over to that window, his head feeling oddly heavy and his vision blurry and fragmented. He gazed up at the distant blue sky… at the birds flying off in the distance. Without even realizing it, his little hand reached up towards the far away sky, the white rays of light playing against his fingertips…

Why was it… that at moments like that…when the blue sky was opened up before me… that I would think about what the Hokage had told me…the day after my parents funeral…

I remember… on that day, I just couldn't stop crying. The pain of loosing them was tearing me apart... On that day, after everyone had left the funeral, and I stood there staring at my mother and fathers grave, and I realized that I was truly alone… I had… no one else to turn to… they were all I had… and they were gone

There was so much pain inside…

But I would find ways of releasing that pain…

"It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!"

I would pound my fists into the training dummies at school, beating those bags of stuffing to a bloody pulp.

I knew it was wrong but I just couldn't stop…I just kept punching… As hard as I could…even after my knuckles started bleeding…No physical pain could compare to that other pain that pulled at my heart everyday. Nothing could even come close to that…

I remember, one day, I had finished beating the stuffing out of the dummy and I just got the urge to kick it halfway across the schoolyard… It was then that I realized that I was making some bad habits… I had already started isolating myself from the other kids at school, because after my parents died I didn't really want to be around anyone anymore. I convinced myself that I was just fed up with everything and everybody, and that I didn't need them to survive… but the truth was, I felt lonely… really lonely…

I wished someone would just notice I was alive…

I sat down on the ground and tried to bandage up my bloody hands when I suddenly felt a big, strong hand grip my shoulder. I didn't look up to see who I was, because I already had a good idea who had come after me so late in the day. It was the one and only person who was capable of caring about me… about everybody it seemed…

"What are you doing Iruka?" Lord Hokage asked. "It's late, you shouldn't be out here."

"So what? It's not like there's anybody waiting at home for me..."

"It that what's been troubling you Iruka?"

"What else would be troubling me…?"

"Well, I thought perhaps maybe a fight at school. You have been getting in a lot of fights lately, Iruka. It's so unlike you…"

I shuddered under all that weight. The weight of how disgusted I was with myself, for all the stupid things I'd done I was all just to get people to notice me… maybe a little. "

It's not fair…" I said threw gritted teeth. "Why did they have to die? They didn't do anything wrong! My father was a ninja, he didn't deserve to be killed that way! And my mother… she didn't deserve it!! Neither of them deserved it at all!"

"It's true…they are dead. But," Lord Hokage muttered sadly. I turned so could the forlorn look on his wise, wrinkled face. I saw that there were tears in his eyes. "Your parents were great people, so full of kindness, and trust and loyalty." He frowned and sniffed. "I am so proud, and I am going to miss them."

"You think you're going to miss them, old man!? They were all I had left and now their gone! What the hell am I supposed to do now!?"

"Hurting yourself like this isn't right. It's cowardly… not to mention pretty dumb.. And it isn't not like you to be dumb, Iruka. You know that you are not honoring their memory. You know your parents would not be happy with you if they knew this was how you dealt with things."

"But… it hurts so much…"I whimpered. "Mom and Dad… I…I miss them so much… and nobody else seems to care… about me! I just don't know what else to do!"

"Iruka, listen to me, because I'm going to tell you something very important: when I was a child, much younger than you, the first and second Hokage told me something that changed the way I thought about death. They told me that we can miss them all our lives, you don't resent their memory, or curse them for leaving us. It is not their fault, it was just their time to die."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it's not helping…"

"They also told me… that when they die, the souls of the dead take on another domain, a place that is very different from our own."

"Where is this place?"

He pointed his index finger upwards. "Up."

I looked at him questionably. "In the sky? How is that possible?"

He chuckled. "Their watching over those they love…"

"Watching over… those they love? All of them?"

"Yes!" Lord Hokage said smiling down at me. "Always!"

"How is that possible?" I asked.

Lord Hokage chuckled and gently patted me on the head. I felt tears swell up. That was the first physical contact I'd had in a long time… and I hadn't realized how much I missed it.

"You really are the brightest student I've ever seen," Lord Hokage said. "But try not to let your logics get in the way of seeing things for what they really are."

Iruka looked down at his child form and realized that he was back in that dark room again. He sighed and crawled over to the wall. He sat down and wrapped his thin arms around his legs.

He looked up at the light streaming in threw the window.

Even though I wouldn't admit it to myself… I wished with all my heart… that it could be a bird…that I could fly up to them…to where the Hokage said they would be waiting for me…

Iruka didn't notice it, but the world around him was slowly starting to melt away. The dark walls were crumbling away to reveal a new place completely engulfed in white light. Iruka didn't know what to make of this space. Everything was white. There were no walls surrounding him, in fact he could feel the soft touch of a breeze against his face, almost as if he were outside. The ground he sat on felt like it was constantly shifting, like solid water. He stood on his wobbly legs and realized that he was a lot taller than a 10 year old should be. He realized that he was his grown self again. "That's weird," he said, staring at his scarred 22-year-old hands. "I wonder how that happened..."

Suddenly, he heard the soft, familiar sound of children laughing. He looked up and saw a group of children playing off in the distance. He stared at them blankly, mystified by the sight. He felt something cold and metallic clutched in both of his hands. He wasn't standing anymore; he was sitting on a swing. He turned to his left and noticed the person sitting beside him on the swing was Naruto.

"So what brings you here?" He said conversationally. "Why aren't you off playing with those kids?"

"They don't like me," he said. Iruka frowned at the unfamiliar monotone of the child's voice.

"Don't say stuff like that, it's so unlike you."

The child didn't say anything; he just continued to stare absently at the ground.

Iruka's brows furrowed. "Naruto, c'mon, why won't you answer me?"

"Get away from me…" he mumbled, his voice harsh and menacing.

"Why?" Iruka asked.

"You all…" He lifted his head and glared at him with piercing red eyes. "You all left me alone," he growled, lifting himself off the swing.

Iruka fell off the swing and started trembling on the ground.

Those eyes…

Those eyes!

The eyes of the Fox Demon…

Iruka gasped as he looked down at his hands and realized he was once again reverting back into a child.

"What!?" he gasped.

Naruto's body hunched over and he loomed over Iruka's small body on all fours. "You bastard… You…" Naruto snarled, baring his dripping fangs in a voice barely recognizable as his own. "YOU LEFT ME ALONE!"

"What!? No! I didn't-"

"DON'T LIE!! YOU DID!! Everyone did… and now…" He smiled wickedly, barring dripping fangs. "I'M HUNGRY, IRUKA-SENSEI!!!!"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

?/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\?

DA-DA-DA-DA-DA-DAAA! That's Iruka-sensei's creepy dream! BWAHAHAHA! What's coming up next you ask? Well, let's just say that Naruto's gonna get sick and Iruka's gonna call in some help from his good pal KAKASHI!!! XD Finally! HERE HE COMES TO SAVE THE DAY! IT'S KAKASHI-SENSEIIIIIIIIII!!! Lol! Okay… it's four in the morning… I gotta get some sleep... See ya' later guys!