9. House of Mirror
Character(s): Iruka-sensei, Mizuki
Summary: Mizuki patrols the night to find a friend. He thinks Iruka is crazy, but sometimes you don't need to understand everything to care.


Mizuki woke up with the feeling that something was wrong. It was late outside, or else very early. The star light was getting patchy, more grey than black in the nighttime. Sinking low, the moon winked among pale, drifting clouds.

He was wasn't a light sleeper, and extra-perception wasn't one of his skills. There was no way he should have been able to feel anything as subtle as unease, or even sorrow. But there were always exceptions.

Mizuki's exception was a brat just under his age with eyes that killed him to ignore. So here he was, awake, puzzled and blinking and all the time cursing because he already knew what was going on. Iruka was up to something.

It wasn't that his friend was mischievous, for all the fuss that he caused. Mizuki thought the whole charade foolish, and sometimes he said so, but Iruka usually just shrugged helplessly and tried not to look ashamed. Mizuki sometimes thought his friend was loosing it, and he told him that too.

None of this stopped him from going after him, though.

When Mizuki finally found Iruka, it was outside the walls. The trees rustled restlessly, whispering to one another, but they didn't bother him as he stood amidst their branches. A narrow river ran below him, and Iruka was sitting in the sand. The starlight danced with a sudden shift in cloud-cover, and Mizuki blinked through the unexpected sparkle. It took him a moment to find the source.

Mirrors, a rim of them. They glistened like watching eyes, braced in the sand. The dark blot in their center swayed slightly with the hum of the wind, but otherwise didn't move. Staring.

Jumping down, Mizuki shifted uncomfortably through the silver hedge. He knelt in front of his friend, looking into his face. Iruka's eyes were like waves, but today they were as flat and tepid as a tide pool. He stared straight past Mizuki, without recognition. Not even the increasing white knuckled grip against the hollows of his collar seemed to move him.

Frightened, Mizuki lashed out, shaking his friend hard enough to make his teeth snap shut. "Iruka," he barked, angry, worried and hiding it poorly. "Look at me!"

It was a relief to see the confusion on Iruka's face. His brown eyes were more like ripples on a lake than true ocean waves, but at least Mizuki could see more in them then his reflection.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, still holding onto his friend. He gave him another shake when the cloudiness started to well up again. "Iruka, wake up!"

Disoriented, Iruka muttered, "Oh, Mizuki. Hi."

The informality was as startling as the lack of waves. But then, this Iruka didn't seem like his friend. He was like a phantom or a doppelganger, and Mizuki was afraid that any moment he would slip through his fingers and disappear in a pillar of smoke. He clinched his fingers tighter, and was rewarded, finally, by a very real wince.

"Ow, Mizuki. You're hurting me," Iruka said, pushing at his friend's white claws. "Let go."

Mizuki did has he was asked. Iruka was still looking at mirrors, and Mizuki looked with him. "People will realize they're missing," he commented. "Why did you take them?"

"I needed them."

Mizuki didn't respond right away, just looked at Iruka before turning to the semi-circle of reflected light. His own face stared back at him from half a dozen perspectives. He looked over his shoulder at the others and self consciously flattened his sleep mussed hair. What had possessed him to come after his friend at such at hour was beyond him.

Beside him, Iruka was shivering.

"Come on," Mizuki said, growing concerned again. It wasn't a chilly morning; even the dew seemed warm. He pulled Iruka's shoulder, but it was like tugging on a dead thing. "I'll take you home."

The shivers had stopped being like shaking and started becoming like sobs. But quiet, soundless, stillborn things. Iruka ducked his head over his clinched knuckles and cried, his loose dark hair sticking to his face in ragged, clinging streamers. He cried.

Suddenly cold himself, Mizuki felt a deep, regretful pang. He'd been to the tiny, colorless place Iruka was issued when his former home, damaged and crumbling, had been condemned and torn down. Iruka's apartment wasn't really home.

But, it still didn't explain the mirrors…

Mizuki crouched beside his friend and faced him. When the younger boy shivered again, Mizuki reached out and pulled him close. His big brother had died, but he remembered being held this way, how reassuring it had felt. Iruka let him, and swallowed hard, trying to regain composure.

"Iruka, let's go back to my house," Mizuki offered. A wry humor seeped into his voice, "It's not like there's anyone there to care about us sneaking in."

Against the fabric of his shoulder, his friend nodded, mute but grateful. He lifted his head to the row of shinning reflective plates around them, fixed like glistening teeth around them. Mizuki thought it was disturbing. He pulled Iruka up by one arm, and kicked over one of the mirrors.

"We'll have to take them back. You can't afford to get caught stealing again."

"I don't steal." Iruka's words sounded numb.

Mizuki made a face. "Fine. You can't afford to be caught borrowing again. The Hokage will kill you."

Brown, dusky lashes blinked, but Iruka said nothing. Reaching out, he gathered one of the pilfered glasses and looked into it. It generously reflected a worn, too-adult face. Iruka said, "This one is Sandaime's."

It always amazed Mizuki that as mild tempered as Iruka generally was, he could still manage to get in so much trouble. Or that he was brazen enough to steal from the leader of their village. Almost awed, he barked, "How?"

A slender shoulder rose and fell. Iruka didn't look especially proud of himself. "He's kind to me. I really shouldn't have taken it. But it was a bad night."

Mizuki shook his head, "I don't understand you."

They gathered the mirrors. Sometimes Mizuki asked Iruka who the mirrors belonged to, surprised when he knew each one exactly. A few of the academy teachers, merchants from the market, parents of their peers. One mirror caught his attention because of the crack down the center.

"It was like that," Iruka commented. "It's Takashi-sensei's."

Mizuki started. Takashi-sensei was the academy sensei in charge of Iruka's year. Before the fox, the man had been kind. However, his wife and two small children had died in the aftermath of the Kyuubi attack, killed by a collapsed beam in their home where they had been taking shelter. Angry and alone, Takashi-sensei had changed. He was a hard, strict teacher now, and of all his class (a notably small, hard-hit grade) he was especially harsh toward Iruka.

Mizuki thought it was because Takashi saw something of another little dark-haired child when he looked at Iruka. There was a picture of his daughter on his desktop. Still full faced and round-eyed, there was a general resemblance, though perhaps more in the eyes of a grieving father than anyone else. But for whatever reason, there were times when Mizuki felt Takashi-sensei's punishment sometimes bordered on abuse rather than discipline.

He fingered the glistening mirror in his fingers. If Takashi-sensei found out he'd been stolen from by this particular student, the repercussions would be severe. Iruka sometimes seemed really messed up, but he didn't deserve the way people either ignored or hurt him. "I'll take this one back first," he said. "Will you promise to meet me back here when you're done?"

Iruka nodded, distracted. He was still staring at his face in his Takashi's mirror. "I promise."

"Good," Mizuki said. He hesitated, reluctant to leave his friend alone again. He was still trembling just slightly in the dewy morning. "Will you be okay?"

Iruka nodded, then he said, "Thank you. For finding me."

There was more going on here than Mizuki comprehended. Iruka looked smaller than usual, almost sick. Struck with inspiration, he blurted, "I see you, Iruka."

Visibly started , Iruka stammered, "W-what?"

Mizuki found himself suddenly surrounded by true waves, and he almost gasping with relief. He was starting to get it. This village was a cold place to him, too. Except for Iruka. "I see you, Iruka. We'll stick together, right?"

Iruka nodded like a door on a slow hinge. "Okay, Mizuki," he said, and there was all the devotion in his voice that was so like him. Iruka never did anything by half. His heart was always on his sleeve, and often, in his eyes. Now, they were wet.

Mizuki looked to the dawning sun. "Good."