Iruka brings his second cup of coffee for the morning to his mouth and takes a swallow, flipping through mission reports at his kitchen table while he debates on the merit of a third dose of caffeine. He figures another mug decreases the likelihood of him actually strangling Kotetsu to death at the mission desk, but also increases his chances of being too nice to Anko on accident and having to deal with her unsubtle harassment/flirting all day.

Just as he decides against it, figuring more caffeination would be worse for both his health and his sanity, there's a soft, hesitant knock on his door.

Iruka freezes immediately, his mug halfway to his mouth.

Not a single person Iruka could be considered friends with would ever knock like that. Only two people he knows would bother knocking at all, the first being Hayate, who is chronically polite, and the second being Gai– whose pounding usually startles Iruka's neighbors and occasionally breaks his door. The rest either just barge in or are overly paranoid Jounin who tend to fall through his window late at night.

Iruka scoots his chair back and gets to his feet. He's not dressed yet– he hadn't planned on going in early today so he's still in his civs– a pair of grey sweatpants and a navy longsleeve, hair loose around his shoulders. He pulls a kunai out from under the table and slips it into the waistband of his pants, covering the handle with a tug of his shirt.

He's prepared for a lot of things when he eases the door open, but the last thing he expects to see is the familiar swath of blond hair belonging to his favorite student, hunched beneath Genma's sorry unconscious carcass.

Blue eyes blink up at him, entirely too red and exhausted for Iruka's liking, but the bright smile offered to him is genuine, if tired. "Hi, Iruka-sensei."

He swings the door open immediately. "Naruto?" He asks, dipping down to relieve his unconscious idiot of a friend from his student's small shoulders. "What's going on? What happened?"

Naruto leans out from underneath Genma's weight as soon as he's able, an oddly graceful bend for an almost ten-year-old. "Uh, I think he's mostly okay, but he passed out in the hallways outside Jiji's office."

Outside the Hokage's office? What the hell was Genma doing there? Unless…

"You moron, Shiranui…" he growls softly, throwing the other shinobi's limp arm over his shoulder, looping his own around the man's waist to haul him upright against his side. Naruto hovers nearby, looking uncertain. Iruka can't help but smile a little. "Think you could help me with this idiot, Naruto? Knowing him he's going to need stitches, do you remember where I keep my med kit?"

Naruto nods smartly and ducks past Iruka into the apartment, vanishing around the corner into the bathroom. Iruka drags his friend to the couch and begins undoing his jounin vest; eyes searching for the red he knows must be beneath the thick fabric of the flak jacket. He finds the pooling stain of crimson over the flesh of Genma's right side, a long swath of it visible in the underside of the jacket like a slash of red paint. The blood is invisible against the standard shinobi longsleeve, so Iruka will have to get him out of it before he can see the extent of the damage. The shirt is otherwise clean and untorn, which raises Iruka's blood pressure because it means the idiot literally went home and changed before he thought of seeking out medical attention. He wants badly to punch the stubborn moron, for that and for apparently passing out on one of his kids, but it will have to wait until Genma is conscious for it.

He puts two fingers to the Tokujo's neck to check his pulse, just as Naruto reappears with Iruka's med case in tow, worry apparent on his young face. "Is he gonna be okay?"

"He's going to be fine." Iruka replies, and is relieved to be able to say so with confidence; Gemma's pulse is throbbing evenly beneath his fingers and even though it's not as strong as he would like, it's not weak either. He looks up at his student, eyes tracing in a cursory check of the boy's current state.

There are still bags under Naruto's eyes that would put Ibiki's raccoon mask to shame, dark bruise-like crescents beneath his bright blue irises. There's more life to them now than there was yesterday at least, a strange stubborn sort of drive that's gained foothold since Iruka last saw him.

"What were you doing in the academy building so early? Looking for Sarutobi-sama?"

Naruto gives a delayed little nod, averting his eyes. "I… ah… couldn't sleep." his voice quiets to nearly a whisper. "Was having nightmares."

Iruka doesn't ask. He can only imagine what kind of things might be rattling around in the poor kid's head at night. "Why didn't you take him to the ER?" He asks to keep himself from prying. "I'm sure it would have been easier. Did he say something?"

Naruto nods. "He said he didn't want to go to the hospital, and he asked me where you were, so I figured if he was looking for you anyway it would be okay." The blond pauses for a moment. "I don't think he wanted anyone to know why he was hurt."

That makes sense to Iruka, he's more than familiar by now with Genma's tendency to cover up just about anything in order to avoid having to explain himself, but the fact that Naruto came to that conclusion about a man he's hardly met is… startling.

Iruka gives the kid as bright a smile as he can, reaching up from where he's crouched at Genma's side to ruffle gold-blond hair in an effort to relay some kind of comfort. "I'm sorry you had to do this. He must have startled you."

Naruto shakes his head, but his eyes are brighter. "I think I might have scared him, not the other way around." He says sheepishly.

Iruka chuckles a little at that. He can imagine how his friend might have reacted, having run into on accident the one person in the village he'd been told, like Kakashi, to avoid, but he finds it humorous mostly because Genma's inability to deal with children is hilarious on the worst of days.

"Could you get the needle and thread out for me please?" he asks, using a soft chakra flare to cut through the fabric of Genma's top. Naruto does as asked with a more enthusiastic "Ya, sure." than Iruka was expecting, considering how tired he must be. To Iruka's knowledge, Naruto's never been much of an early riser.

Iruka peels the blood soaked layer back to reveal three parallel gashes along the length of Genma's ribs. The cuts are long, running the upper edge of the obliques before curving inwards toward the navel, the length of Iruka's hand from wrist to fingertip. The wounds are clean and unmistakable; too thin for kunai, too deep for shuriken, too uniform for ninja wire. There's a small red line even with the gashes where a fourth weapon grazed the dip behind Genma's ribcage.

A fourth finger.

To Iruka's surprise, Naruto insists on watching over his shoulder.

He doesn't seem at all squeamish of the blood and pull of tissue as Iruka works, stitching the edges of the wound together. When he's finished, he makes a sequence of hand signs he wishes weren't so damn familiar, and crosses his palms over Genma's wounds.

"Medical Art: Energy Stitch."

A soft turquoise glow envelops his hands, the warm hum of chakra seeping into the skin beneath his touch.

"Whoa…" Naruto says in his ear. "I didn't know you were a medic, sensei."

Iruka chuckles. "I'm not a true medic, but I do have a specialty in field medicine, which this moron here seems to think is the equivalent."

Naruto blinks curiously. "What's the difference?"

Iruka shrugs, toning back on the chakra as the wounds begin to pull closed around the deeper stitches. "A true medic-nin wouldn't need stitches at all. My chakra control isn't quite good enough to properly heal damage deep enough to cut into muscle, but a real medic can not only heal deeper wounds, but also damage to bones and chakra vessels."

"That's awesome…" Naruto marvels, crossing his arms over the back of Iruka's shoulder and resting his chin on them. "My chakra control is sucky though, so I probably wouldn't be any good at it."

And that won't do, that won't do at all. Iruka finishes his patch job a turns to look his student right in the eyes. "You know what I think, Naruto?"

"Hm?" the young blond answers, eyes still on Genma's newly healed wounds.

"I think you could be whatever you set your mind to."

Naruto's eyes widen, and for a second he's the same vulnerable little boy Iruka almost tripped over outside Ichiraku, the one that still flinched when Iruka put a hand on his shoulder. Iruka smiles warmly over his shoulder at him. "There's no doubt in my mind that if you really wanted to, you could be a brilliant medic, chakra trouble or no." Iruka's smile curves sideways. "But I also think that that isn't quite what you want, is it?"

"What?" Naruto asks, obviously off balance.

"You seem to me more the kind of ninja that would prevent your comrades from being hurt in the first place." Iruka states softly, tilting his head. "Am I wrong?"

Naruto shakes his head. "Do you think I could do that though?"

Iruka snorts a soft laugh. "I think you'd be good at it. More than that, I think it's your Will of Fire."

Naruto makes a kind of adorably frustrated face. "Jiji keeps talking about that but he won't tell me what it means. It's all 'you'll understand when you're older' and stuff."

"That because it's different for everyone, kiddo. Not everyone has the same kind of fire because not everyone is driven by the same thing. Your will of fire is the thing that drives you further than anything else, the fuel you use to do things other people wouldn't manage in your shoes."

"Like protecting precious people."

The answer is so immediate and sure that Iruka is a bit incredulous of it, but then something clicks into place in Iruka's head like a puzzle piece, a fragment he's been missing that changes his view of the blonde boy in front of him, a subtle shift, but a powerful one.

For an instant, reflected in Naruto's bright eyes, he sees terrifying potential.

Iruka has seen potential before, it's his job to scout it out, pull it from hiding places, ensure that his kids know full well what they can be if they put their effort forward. It's easy in students like Shino and Tenten, kids that already have an idea of who they are and what they want to be, an idea of how to push themselves forward. It's harder in students like Shikamaru or Choji, whose potential either sleeps the day away, or is buried under layers of doubt. Iruka had, mistakenly, placed Naruto in the later category.

By the look in those eyes, Naruto knows how strong he can be, and even if he isn't fully aware of it, something in him is, something in him knows what he's capable of given opportunity and means.

And from the sliver of it Iruka can see, the latent possibility is bottomless.

An idea is forming in his head out of nowhere, summoned by this newly completed picture.

Naruto tips his head in animal curiosity at his silence, clearly waiting for whatever Iruka is thinking of telling him.

And how did I overlook instincts like that? Iruka wonders.

Naruto's not exactly a tactical thinker, but with senses like he's been displaying, he obviously doesn't need to be. Iruka hadn't been looking for it, because intuition like that, animal intuition, is something Iruka hasn't seen outside the Inuzuka.

Or Kakashi. His brain supplies as an afterthought.

"Do you know what the definition of specialization is?" Iruka asks. The boy shakes his head and sits down on the edge of the coffee table. Iruka makes himself comfortable as well, leaning back against the base of the couch and pulling a knee up to rest his hand against. "A specialization is a set of skills outside of the normal range of abilities ninja are taught. I have a Chunin level specialty in field medicine– most teachers are required to have some kind of non-combative specialty, in case of emergencies."

"Like a Tokujo?" Naruto asks.

Iruka nods, inclining his head towards Genma. "Tokujo like this idiot gained their rank through a Jounin level specialization, or two, in his case. It's a lot easier than becoming a full rank Jounin. Have you ever thought about what you might want to specialize in? As a Chunin or as a Jounin?" Because now Iruka is thinking about it, is curious to see what Naruto might choose to become.

Naruto shakes his head and rubs the back of his neck, looking suddenly uncertain again. "Not really. I'm not actually sure how all of it works."

Iruka nods and stands. He'd assumed as much. Normally he wouldn't be talking about these kinds of things with a student who hasn't yet graduated the academy, but for Naruto, it's obviously not a question of if he'll graduate, only when.

"Why don't we have some breakfast and I'll tell you all about it? I could use another cup of coffee, I think."

A shinobi never wakes slowly. There is no soft transition into awareness through soft hazy light and absent thought, no easy surfacing from darkness. For Genma it happens in an instant, hardly a second from one state to the other, a snap straight from unconsciousness into perfect clarity. He doesn't open his eyes, doesn't let them flicker, does not allow his body to tense. Habit born of long practice in the field transformed into an instinctual tick he couldn't break if he tried. He's perfectly still, not even a hiccup in his breathing from one state to the next, but apparently that doesn't matter.

"I know you're awake you moron."

Genma blinks his eyes open warily, wincing at the headache that greets him by way of the glaring midmorning sunshine and large amount of blood he probably lost. He hates anemic hangovers. They're almost as bad as the actual thing.

But the pain he's currently in has nothing on the pain he's about to be in, if the look on Umino Iruka's face is any indication.

"Please tell me that's your third cup of coffee." Genma whines. He's not proud of it.

Iruka drums his fingernails against his ceramic mug with for too much cheer to be anything but homicidal. "Fifth, actually." He says with a tight-lipped smile, and ya, Genma's fucked. Raidou will be finding bits of him in Iwa.

Ibiki had warned him too– 'Don't be friends with Iruka' he'd said. 'Bad for your health' he'd said. God sometimes he wishes he'd listened. Anyone who could tolerate hanging out with Anko had to be batshit.

But it's so easy to be friends with Iruka; he's smart, he's funny, you never have to worry about him hitting on your significant other, and he's afraid of literally no one on the face of the planet. He egged Danzo Shimura's house when he was fourteen. How could Genma not be friends with him?

In fact the only time Genma has seen Iruka afraid is when it's for someone, and usually the second he's not afraid for you he's pissed, usually at you for doing something stupid enough to get you hurt. Considering Genma hasn't quite been eviscerated, he figures he only gave Iruka a mild start.

He tries for a smile that lands far too close to a grimace to be convincing. "Uh… how much trouble am I in exactly?"

Iruka narrows his eyes, so that was obviously the wrong thing to ask. "You bled all over my favorite student."

Genma cringes visibly, the memory coming back to him in flashes. "Shiiiiit." He groans, pressing the heel of a palm to his eye and rubbing hard. "Is blondie okay?"

Iruka's ire calms visibly and he sets his mug down. "He's fine, he's a tough kid. He was more concerned about you actually. I gave him something to eat and sent him home to sleep."

Genma nods, remembering the dark rings circling red and watery blue eyes. "Ya…the squirt didn't look so good."

"He said he'd been having nightmares." Iruka says pensively, staring down at his mug on the table. "He was looking for Sarutobi when you smacked into each other. Probably after someone to talk to."

"He should have parents for that." Genma growls before he can help it. The words are bitter and sting like acid on his tongue, but he won't take them back.

The look Iruka gives him is sympathetic and exasperated all at once. "Now you sound like Kakashi."

Genma sighs, letting the anger drain out of his expression, but not his blood. "It wasn't Kakashi's job to protect one of them."

"Don't." Iruka says softly. "There was nothing that you could have done, any of you. We've all failed before."

"Not like that." Genma counters fiercely. "Not with these consequences."

Iruka cedes that point with a tilt of his head, and then says, completely off topic, "I'm going to flay Inoichi."

Genma blinks, momentarily thrown. It's not like Iruka doesn't threaten to murder Jounin rank ninja every day, he threatens the Sandaime about every ninth breath, (The God of Shinobi pulls the 'too old for paperwork' card a lot, from what Genma hears through the walls), but he can't think of anything in the last few days Yamanaka senior has pulled that might warrant Iruka's wrath.

"Something wrong with Ino?" Genma guesses. It's usually a safe bet– nothing gets on the Chunin's nerves quite like someone messing with his kids. Even if the culprit is a parent.

"She told me she was on a diet, yesterday." Iruka says scathingly.

Whoops. Inoichi better haul ass for cover, because that means he's been spending too much time out with Choza and not enough time making sure Ino doesn't emulate her mother.

Genma should probably check how much time he spends with Iruka, since it's apparently enough to be up to date on the schoolhouse gossip mill.

"Civilians." Genma groans, knowing Iruka will catch his meaning. Genma not-so-subtly hates most of them, and sure, Ino's mother is a strong elegant woman with a fierce protective instinct, but she also forgets that her daughter is a ninja and needs to be treated like the warrior she's shaping up to be.

"That's not the kind of mindset any ten-year-old should have, much less a ninja." Iruka growls. "And it's starting to get to Sakura. It's contagious."

Genma laughs, which was clearly Iruka's goal because his lips quirk up at the corners and give him away. "Sneaky." Genma chuckles, wincing when the movement of his ribs pulls at the fresh stitches in his side. He puts a hand over the bandages on his bare side, catching sight of the sorry remains of his shinobi top lying in tatters next to the coffee table Iruka is sitting on. "That was a brand new sleeveless you know."

"Then maybe you shouldn't have put it on over fresh injuries." Iruka snaps back. "What were you thinking, walking around that injured?"

"I was thinking if I could make it to your classroom I could pass out behind your desk in peace. Didn't account for a tiny blond smacking into my open wounds."

Iruka looks like there's a reprimand itching to jump out from behind his teeth, but he swallows it and stares Genma down for a long moment instead. "Kakashi doesn't know does he?" He asks after a long moment, inclining his head towards the wound.

Genma sighs heavily. "No. He thinks he missed me." When Iruka raises an eyebrow at that, he shoots a glare back. "He wasn't exactly all there at the time."

"How bad?"

"No worse than usual."

"That doesn't reassure me, given the circumstances."

Because Genma is a mature adult shinobi with A-rank Kill-on-Contact warrants in three countries, he doesn't stick his tongue out at Iruka. Raidou would be proud.

Iruka must sense his petulance anyways because he snorts and sways to his feet. "Come on. I still have some breakfast left over."

Genma rolls off the couch so fast he almost pulls his stitches. Iruka's cooking is not something one turns their nose up at, mortal wounds or no. Iruka laughs at him the whole way to the kitchen.

"Who makes curry for breakfast?" Genma asks, even as he stuffs his face with Iruka's leftovers. Iruka's kitchen was warm and homey in a way most people wouldn't associate with a shinobi, covered in colourful drawings and little souvenirs of his students, taped and stacked on every conceivable surface. There are new ones since Genma was here last– an ink drawing of koi with Hanabi Hyuuga's name signed in the corner, a little glazed clay figurine of a bumblebee that could only be from Shino.

"Naruto wanted to learn how to make it, it was as good a time as any." Iruka remarks as he flips through a report, another cup of coffee by his elbow. "And chew your food, you're an assassin not a four-year-old."

Genma swallows reflexively and reaches for his mug of black tea to help wash it down. As expected it's fantastic, not too heavy but also not too thin, with enough spice to set a lesser man on fire. "Did you give this to the brat?" he asks, wondering at the heat level.

"No, we made two pots. Naruto's was tamer– he took it home with him."

Genma glances at the clock. 10:34am, which means Iruka called in a sick day to take care of him.

"Umm, you sure the School's not gonna blow up without you?" He asks around a spoonful of scalding curry, unwilling to stop eating long enough to speak without his mouthful.

Iruka raises his eyebrow around his coffee cup, and doesn't deign that with a response. Instead he stares down at Genma's nearly empty curry bowl with ill-disguised amusement "Does Raidou not feed you?"

Genma stops for a fraction of a second, swallows so hard it makes his chest hurt. "Are you insinuating something Umino?" he asks, planting his elbow on the table and leveling a playfully suspicious glare at the schoolteacher.

Iruka laughs and swats Genma's arm out from under him for his bad manners. "You insinuate plenty all on your own. Plus, you have a thing for scars. It was only a matter of time."

"I do not." Genma sputters. "Lies and slander. Besides, I thought you didn't care about that kind of thing."

And the proof of that is obvious enough– Genma knows he's hot. He's known it since before he'd hit puberty. But he's been shirtless this whole time and Iruka hasn't so much as looked him over. He never has, at least not in a way that didn't have to do with checking for injury.

"Just because I don't have a libido doesn't mean I don't have eyes, Shiranui." Iruka drawls, dry as a Suna dessert. "Besides it figures the one person you fall for for good is the only one immune to your charms."

Genma smirks, puts his spoon down in his empty bowl and tucks his senbon back between his teeth.

"Other than you of course." He says with a wink.

"Get out of my house Genma."