Disclaimer: I do not in any way; own Naruto the anime, only the story line and whatever things I made up!
Chapter 1- Iruka's Creepy Class
It was a day like any other. Konoha village was bathed in bright golden sunlight, wind whispering delicately through the forest around the village. The sky was a brilliant cerulean blue with small patches of cloud floating lazily across, nudged along by an unseen force. In the
village, school had assembled for another day of productive and fun filled learning. Iruka- sensei entered the classroom, sliding the door shut behind him. The classroom fell silent the moment he stepped in to the room. Iruka froze for a second, taking in his class, before
continuing to advance in to the room. He felt a slight sensation of discomfort crawl up his spine. Every student's pair of eyes rested upon him, staring at him intently. Almost, too intently. Iruka suddenly had the urge to dash out of the classroom and hide from the boring eyes
of his students. It was like they were a pack of wolves hunting him, observing him, waiting for the kill. Ever since the graduation of his class last year, Iruka had received a class of particularly respectful, obedient and almost freakish students. By the time he reached his
desk at the front, Iruka felt like melting in to the floor and escape the unwelcome staring. As he set his books down on the desk and took his position behind his desk, Iruka steeled himself for the last part of the daily morning ritual he experienced everyday, but by no means could ever get used to.
"Ohayo minna- san." A simultaneous scraping of chairs made Iruka wince, although he did not show it outwardly.
"Ohayo gozaimasu Iruka sensei!" chorused the whole class together. Iruka felt like he could die. What had happened to this generation of children? Where was the outright defiance that was natural in children of this age? The discord of class that Iruka had come to expect
from this particular age group? Iruka watched as his class gave him a tight, low bow, all students in perfect coordination with each other. "They look like zombies." Iruka thought absently. He bowed back in response as protocol required. If not for that little piece of
etiquette, he thought he would have made a rude gesture towards his class instead. Last year's class, the one with Naruto in it—"Good thing that I passed Naruto when I did, he would have died with these kids as his classmates"— they would have said ohayo to him
during their own time. He had gotten used to this direct rudeness and now he had been thrown in to unknown and dangerous territory which he only knew the name of. A sign flashed in to being in to his mind. It read, "Welcome to the land of extreme and unending obedience and politeness. Population: 26." Yes, that was what its name was. He sighed, absent mindedly organizing his papers.
"All right class, today we'll be refining our fighting skills with weapons. We'll be refining our aim with kunai, throwing stars and also learn how to fight with some new…" Iruka trailed off, staring at his class, his mouth falling open slightly. "You guys can sit down now…" Iruka
said, blinking at his students. His class had still been standing after the morning bow, staring at him intently, waiting for his command for them to sit down. Iruka gripped the edge of his desk, knuckles turning white. "If they do something like that one more time, I think
I'll take my kunai to them!" He momentarily envisioned the headless bodies of his students; their blood splattered in what Iruka thought were particularly aesthetic patterns on the walls of the classroom. "The red compliments the walls quite well; I think I'd keep it there
if that ever happened." This gave him a deeply satisfied feeling, envisioning his students beheaded. He shook his head bringing himself back to reality. "If the parents knew I was thinking of stuff like that." Iruka took a deep breathe and addressed his class again.
"I already told you; sit down, on your own, after the morning greeting. Is that understood?" Iruka scanned the classroom, making eye contact with as many of his students as possible. "If you fail to do so again," Iruka narrowed his eyes slightly for effect, he saw his
students begin to cower slightly. "If you fail to do so again, then I will have to…punish ALL of you!" Iruka paused for effect, staring down his class. If he was not wrong, he actually saw some of his students pale to the point of fainting. It gave him a certain sense of
satisfaction to watch his students cower. Not that he was a malicious slave driver or dictator, intent on wreaking fear on his students. It was the goody- goodness of his class that got to him. Follow protocol, don't break rules, and be as good and respectful to your elders as
possible. What exactly was wrong with this generation? Iruka mused again. Who were their parents and where were they from? Had they taken too many drugs when they had their kids? He wanted to give their parents all a good, hard whack on the head. That might get them
back to reality about how abnormal their children were. Iruka raised his eye- brow slightly at his class, waiting for their response. In a hasty chorus of voices, the students responded,
"Hai, sensei!" Iruka noted that it was less in volume then before and more of the voices were choked in fear. "Goody- goodies." muttered Iruka under his breath.
"As I was saying, we will be practicing with our weapons today. I would like you all to file out to the practice field immediately. Head to the target range and I will be there shortly. And don't do anything silly." "Not that I need to tell them something let that!" He watched
his class get out of their desks and head out the door in what seemed like a sub- consciously formed single file line. Iruka's mouth dropped open slightly. In his entire teaching career, he had never seen that happen. "Freaks," he muttered as he followed the last student
out of his class. At least he would be alone for a while as he headed to the weapons depot on the opposite of the school grounds where all the weapons of Konoha Village were stored. He would be alone, away from all the staring eyes and the stiflingly polite atmosphere his
students gave off. And he would also get to relax his newly discovered, slightly murderous tendencies. Iruka had begun to develop a side of him that he had never realized that he had until he had met his class as of current. The side that was thrilled by blood and murder and
the suffering of the masses, especially when the actions, scenes and visions in his head included the participation of his students, as the victims! Iruka noted his students seated in orderly rows at the edge of practice field number one, quietly keeping out of mischief and
trouble. He also noted that his class was the only class there was on the practice field. Silence stretched in all directions, not at all broken by his class, which were sitting quietly, like ducks who had had their voice boxes taken out; they had the ability to speak and make noise,
but that ability hade been taken from them for reasons and in ways that were mysterious to all but those who had committed the act themselves. What he wouldn't give to have a normal class right now. He whistled as he made his way to the weapons depot, taking his
time. "Better to stay away from that class as much as possible." Iruka thought to himself. He looked up at the sky, noting the blueness of the sky and thinking how nice it would be to take this day off and go fishing in the forest. He continued to whistle, passing
through what seemed to be miles of practice fields. "Miles are good. Miles means more time away from freak squad, which means more time for me to spend in the realm of sanity and a clean criminal record." He continued to walk, idly musing about what he
would do after work when he nearly ran himself in to the wall of the huge weapons depot. He had managed to stop himself in time when his senses had picked up on a particularly large and immovable object that hadn't seemed like it had wanted to move any time soon. The
reason would be that it was the weapons depot. And as far as Iruka knew, weapons depots, particularly when they came in the form of large, towering, steel buildings, didn't move on their own, not without a lot of effort and a little help from the kind forces from above.
Kami- sama, for example. Iruka's question though, as he corrected his direction of movement that would bring him to the entrance of the weapons depot was, why had Kami- sama stuck with the class that many sensei's – and he knew he himself—should be considering the
class from heaven? Maybe the forces from above weren't so kind after all. Maybe they were actually malevolent forces that were plotting for the destruction of many things like Iruka's life. Not that his life had been that bad in particular, but right now, it was with that alien
class. "I wonder what planet they are from, or what dimension. They could have gotten stuck in an unexplainable phenomenon that bent space and time and ripped a couple of barriers and stuck them in the middle of Konoha village." Iruka rubbed his eyes
and sighed. This class wasn't good for his health, his mental health to be more specific. He was talking to himself now and not only that, he was envisioning the death of his class, and enjoying it on top of that! He paused to wrench open the door to the warehouse. It opened
with a squeaky cough, showing him in to the dusty foyer of the warehouse. The pink- haired ninja on duty was sitting with her legs up on the desk, a magazine in her hands, leaning back in to her chair, boredom obvious on her face. The moment that Iruka stepped through the
door, the girl shot in to position, feet on the floor, facing front, the magazine nowhere in sight. She was the picture of diligent work, all attention on a piece of paper in front of her that was completely and utterly blank. When Iruka as half way across the floor, she looked up at him, as if realizing for the first time that he had just entered the compound. She smiled at him, a full and dazzling white smile.
"How may I help you today?" she asked, forced cheerfulness on her face. Iruka couldn't blame her. She was working in a dank and dusty warehouse that only saw the presence of customers once a week when the warehouse – owned by Konoha village
administration—held a weekly 40 off all weapons sale. Then all the ninja's in the village came down and purchased whatever weapons they needed. For the rest of the week, she would be sitting there, serving the one or two customers a day that were desperate enough to
over look the 40 off deal and purchase weapons during the normal days of the week and those that worked directly for the Konoha Village administration. These guys had special cards that let them have access to the weapons for 50 off. This means they could knock
them selves out weapons shopping any day of the week! Lucky them! She was looking at him, her inquiring, cheerful face quickly faltering and giving in to a face of extreme boredom. She fought valiantly against reverting to the less than desirable facial expression, --especially
dangerous and undesirable for customer personnel—but failed miserably. Her face turned against her and reverted completely to extreme boredom mode. She fingered the register on the desk beside her, as if already bored by Iruka's presence. There was no doubt, very little
money in the register as they received almost no business on week days. And they weren't about to get any out of Iruka. Since he was getting weapons in order to teach his class, he was undoubtedly part of the school board, which meant that he could get weapons for free.
"Hi, I need to get some weapons for my class outside." Iruka said. The girl blinked at him as though just coming back from a dream. A dream that would have been about two seconds long.
"Uummm, you're a teacher, with the board?" Iruka nodded in affirmation. She sighed, and reached for a pile of blue colored paper that sat beside her.
"Fill out this form please. I'm sure you know the drill." She handed the paper to him and went back to her world of boredom. Iruka filled out the form as protocol required, silence once again reigning in the room. Once he was done, he handed the form to the girl. She gave
the paper a cursory glance, then reached for a ring of keys behind her and hefted them in to her hand. She made her way over to a door hidden in shadows on the opposite side of the room from the door Iruka had entered in and unlocked the door, revealing the dark interior
of a vast room. He followed the girl in to the warehouse, taking in the familiar sights of storage shelves falling all over themselves with the weight of all the boxes stacked upon them. Each box held weapons and was arranged in alphabetical order, for easy searching. Iruka
blinked twice trying to make out the stairs that led done to the floor of the warehouse. They were awfully hard to see, for some odd reason. Iruka glanced up once more at the dark warehouse shelves, squinting farther in to the darkness. "Why is the warehouse so
dark? They usually have pretty good lighting in here." There was something wrong… He paused on his descent down the stairs, squinting even harder in to the darkness. Was it him, or were there no boxes on the shelves? Iruka blinked twice once more. "If I keep this up, I'll turn in to some sort of ninja owl."
"Hey!" he called down to the girl ahead of him. He heard a crash and bang followed by a stream of curses best left censored for the ears of the innocent. Iruka winced.
"What?" the girl nearly screamed back at him. "Where did the goddamned lights go? I thought that Kishimoto lit them this morning!"
"I don't think there are any boxes on those shelves." The sounds of the girl picking herself up momentarily stopped. Then loud footsteps ascended the stairs, telling Iruka that she was coming back up to join him.
"What?" she asked exasperated and just a little irritated. "Don't you want your equipment? What about no boxes?"
"Look." Iruka said shortly, pointing out in to the darkness. The girl squinted in the direction of Iruka's finger. She blinked twice, like Iruka had done moments earlier. "Maybe she'll join me in becoming a ninja owl." thought Iruka briefly. Really, there had been a lot of blinking going on, especially on the part of Iruka.
"Let me get a lantern." muttered the girl, disappearing back in to the other room. Moments later, she reappeared with the lantern in hand, lighting it as she went. Once the lantern was lit, they stood in a little island of light. "In this vast, terrible sea of darkness." Iruka thought, adding his own creepy music that only he could hear. "I'm going nuts." muttered Iruka.
"What was that?" asked the girl looking at him. He shook his head.
"Let's just get down there and check out what's going on." They both made their silent way down the stairs of the warehouse, their footsteps echoing loudly in the darkness, the lantern lighting the murky darkness. Iruka meanwhile was playing creepy music in his head
and thinking of vastly implausible scenarios of weapon eating monsters that had consumed all their weapons and were now looking to consume human flesh. "Nah, that's too much like what other people would think of. Now what would Iruka think of? Iruka would
say that the monsters were looking to strip these two helpless people of their weapons and were looking to eat all the weapons in the world! Yes, that's what Iruka would think of!" Iruka began to smile, an almost maniacal glint entering his eyes. As fast as the
smile and glint had appeared, it vanished. "When did I start referring to my self in the third person?" He was sure his class was getting to him. This was probably his coping method, talking to himself. Suddenly, Iruka felt solid ground underneath his sandal. They had
reached the warehouse floor. He watched as the girl made her way to one of the shelves of the warehouse. "I wonder what is going to happen?" Maybe the weapon eating monsters would suddenly jump out and assail them from the darkness. A gasp from the general
direction of the girl brought Iruka out of his thoughts. At first, Iruka didn't understand what he was seeing. The girl was frozen, holding the lantern in one quivering hand, while supporting herself with the other hand, staring at something in front of her. Then Iruka looked at
where she was staring and realized why she had gasped. The shelves were empty. All that remained were small dust balls, rolling around on the shelves on unseen currents of air. Iruka backed up, squinting in to the darkness. He could see the shelves better on the floor, and
could see that all of the shelves were devoid of anything other then dust balls. All over the warehouse, stood empty shelves that looming down upon the two of them, their stark silhouettes convincing Iruka that this had been the work of the weapon eating monsters and they
had some how coerced the shelves in to their cause in ways that Iruka could never fathom. Iruka backed up one more step just to make sure he was seeing what his eyes were telling him. They were. Iruka's weapon eating monsters had indeed been here, and they had gotten there before him.
Silverlight Neko: First fic published, if you have any suggestions as to how I can improve my writing, please feel free to comment.