Disclaimer
I do not own Naruto.
Summary
It all began with a harmless joke on an unsuspecting chunin. Nothing bad was supposed to happen, really, and Kakashi was supposed to go scot-free. Instead, he got saddled with the finished problem: One super-cute Iruka chibi.
Author's Notes
Don't kill me, please? I tried to do this chapter really, really quick to make you guys happy. I set a goal for me: GET WORK DONE IN A WEEK. Then I kept getting more and more work, it just wouldn't stop. And then Plastic Ponies was bumped down the list of importance. I was trying to not write.
And yes, I find clipping my toenails more important than writing...
The shirt, which had been so baggy when Iruka was in the body of a twelve year old, was stretched tight over the newly developed chest. The hard surface rose and fell in a slow rhythm as the now older chunin stared upwards, bored expression slapped onto his face. He sighed, pulling at the pair of slacks that were dangerously low on his hips, lying on the bed in the strange position they had managed to move a few inches lower.
Sasuke stared at his now older teacher, feeling the gears turning in his head to fight the blush spreading over his features. He moved slowly back, away from Iruka, as if the added space would help him gain control again. He didn't notice Naruto until the blond was almost on top of him.
"I forgot…"
The black haired boy turned, surprised at the murmured thought, and promptly choked at the sight of Naruto.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed, he looked as if he was ready to jump the chunin. "I forgot how sexy Iruka-sensei was!" He drooled happily, clasping his hands in excitement, "Last time I saw him at this age I couldn't properly appreciate it, but now I won't let this chance get away from me!"
It was only at that moment that Sasuke, horrified, saw that he was in the exact path Naruto planned on taking to get to Iruka.
Suddenly torn between warning Iruka, who was still staring blankly at the wall directly in front of him, and saving himself from the salivating Naruto, who was coming closer, Sasuke compromised. With a few seals and a well-placed sharingan skill, the Uchiha went through with his; suicidal in his mind, plan.
Naruto blinked when smoke filled the room, halting his movement to wait for visibility to return to him. His ears twitched slightly as something moved behind him, causing him to turn and face the threat.
"Sasuke?" He asked, shifting closer to the sound, "Is that you? Cause if it is, I'm gonna kill you!"
The kitsune backed up slightly when a sneeze echoed through the rooming, moving to a more defensive spot in the corner of the room. His eyes darted to the bed and took in Iruka's still form. 'Now's my chance.' Naruto thought to himself, moving back towards the bed, forgetting all about the mysterious smoke accompanied by a sneeze.
Standing next to the chunin, hand out reached to touch him, Naruto was shocked when he noticed Iruka staring directly at him. "I'd look behind you." Iruka spoke for the first time in his new body, using a tenor voice only a touch higher than his usual tone. It was also tinged with a touch of, no other way to say it, manliness.
Naruto blatantly ignored the words spoken to him, simply staring at his smiling teacher's mouth as he talked. He was about to turn into a puddle of blonde happiness, who wouldn't if a nineteen-year-old Iruka talked to them? But was jerked back into reality when a hand landed heavily on his shoulder.
Turning slowly, Naruto quickly tried to think of who knew where he lived. 'Kakashi-sensei was here but then he ran off to do his mission. Damn teleporting bastard.' He finished, scowling as his hands tightened into fists at his side. 'It's probably that idiot coming back.' An evil smile, 'So I'll hit sensei before he hits me!' Naruto nodded at his logic and finished his turn quickly, swinging his fists-
To almost hit another sex god.
"I haven't seen Kurenai yet, Anko." Sakura had started to drop the end titles when Anko had danced on the kitchen tables with another teacher. Then again, it might have been when the woman had tried to get Sakura into a group of people giving belly shots. She was only twelve, for gods' sake.
All that really mattered was: She dropped the titles.
Anko looked up from her structure of cheese, placing down another block of orange before straightening and brushing her hands on her vest. "Stop worrying, Saku-chan!" Her nickname for the genin, "Kurenai will show up, late as usual, dragging Asuma in after her, as usual."
Sakura grunted angrily, her arms crossed in silent meditation. The moment she had met Asuma-san, well, since he had found her, he had simply seemed to be enjoying the party for all its worth. In fact, Kurenai was nowhere to be seen, considering that the one jounin was almost never seen without the other.
The genin sighed through her slightly parted lips, looking through the open doorway to where the older man was currently. 'It would help if he didn't dance with Hiashi-sensei the entire night.' Sakura glared at the pair of adults, the woman with red hair, who was the girl's edict teacher, cuddled up closely against the smoking jounin.
"Oh… I see." Anko said, looking over her shoulder into the main living room, noticing immediately what was wrong with the girl. "Don't worry." She began, sloshing back another shot of something, "I'll make sure to get them together. In fact, now that I think about it, I believe I could use your help."
Sakura perked with interest, the adult's usually never let her help in anything. "What is it that I can do?" She asked, hesitant, suddenly remembering who this was. The pink haired girl was so involved that she forgot her real reason for searching for Kurenai, to inform the jounin of the missing Iruka.
Anko chuckled darkly, "Help me make the greatest love there ever was in Konoha."
It was a half hour, maybe forty minutes, when Kurenai sauntered into the apartment building. Sakura felt herself suck in a huge breath, feeling like this party was soon going to become a land mine. She felt like a person casted for a role in a play.
In a way, she was.
Every ninja at the party, sober or a little less than sober, had their own little part to play. Before Kurenai arrived, Anko had gone around and explained the situation to everyone, save Asuma and his date. No one argued; it was a well-known fact that ninjas, while notorious for their stealth skills and information gathering, were also infamous for their curiosity involving romance.
This might have been because many of the ninja's were single. It was a hard life to lead, and many of them weren't keen on leading another down the path to death. Or it might have been simpler, like they were all nosey as hell.
Any who, Sakura was expecting Kurenai to come through the door alone, and she was sorely surprised. She was betting on it, but when the woman walked through the door with another man on her arm, Sakura was beginning to panic.
With a glance at Anko, sitting at the table with no tension at all with the new element to the equation, Sakura also relaxed. So she went forward with her first part of the mission, now playfully named by the others: Red Eyed Smoker.
"Hello, Kurenai-san!" Sakura said happily, moving out from the group of strategically dancing people to stop in front of the older woman. "Anko had told me that you would soon be coming."
Kurenai raised one fine eyebrow, regarding the child in front of her. "Yes? And?" She shifted so that she was more firmly pressed against the male. A hand snuck out to hang on the man's shoulder, creating a more stable form for Kurenai to lean on.
It's not that he wasn't hot, that would be an understatement, but he just seemed wrong with Kurenai. The ninja shifted so that the woman could fit into his side, and he was a ninja, judging from the leaf headband wrapped around his bicep.
Suddenly, Sakura remembered who this man was. How his face had seemed so familiar, even though she had never formally talked to him. He was one of the chunin who were constantly running around the mission room, in fact, he had handed the team their last mission.
"Excuse me," Sakura began, her hands threaded behind her back in a casual pose, "But aren't you…Hayao-san?" She tested out the name, nodding when it matched the man in front of her.
Bright, green eyes narrowed as the man smiled, nodding along with Sakura for a moment afterwards. His hair, which was a jet-black color, stuck out in strange places but then it was also plastered down also. He was a nice enough guy, but he still didn't fit with Kurenai.
And that was something that every ninja partying was prepared to fix. They didn't want to devastate the chunin, but if he could just find another lover more suitable for him, say a certain edict teacher.
So Sakura began to put the plan in action.
"I hear that Asuma-san is also here." Sakura noted in what she hoped was a nonchalant manner, glancing over to the side at the hoard of ninja. "He was dancing with Hiashi-sensei. Aren't they such a cute couple?" She sighed and looked over at the couple in the living room, leaning on each other for support.
Anko choose that moment to fulfill her supporting role, wandering into the hallway with a platter of empty cups balanced skillfully. "Oh, Kurenai, what a pleasant surprise! We were expecting you!" She placed her burden lightly on the counter, clapping her hands after being relieved of the object.
"What are you planning?" Kurenai growled, letting go of her date to move over to the younger ninja. "Something is rotten in here-"
Sakura laughed nervously, "It might be the dip. Kakashi-sensei forgets how old things are in his refridgerator and he leaves them there." She supplied, laughing in a sudden higher pitch. The genin picked up the platter of dip, ignoring the protests from the adults eating from it, and dumped it in the sink.
"It's always the dip." Anko sighed while making a gesture behind her back to the waiting ninja. "I should have checked it but, you know, in the insanity of planning a party in fifteen minutes…"
Before she could continue with her elaborate lie, she felt it was going well, Anko stopped as a presence flared behind her. Turning, while keeping her guard up, she was met with the sight of Asuma throwing back another shot of sake.
Sakura, who had been happy to see the bearded teacher sober, only an hour ago, was shocked when Asuma downed a whole bottle of the pale green liquid. She swallowed hard when Genma moved into place, about to play his part in the master plan. The genin struggled to stop him, to try and halt his next words, but it was all in vain since Genma never stopped anything he started.
"Let's dance!" He screamed, earning howls of agreement from the neighboring ninja who were sitting on the sidelines waiting for this request.
Kurenai looked around wildly, confusion in her eyes, before she was shoved into the fray of moving limbs that consisted of every ninja teacher in the village.
The red-eyed teacher growled, pushing a girl away who was laughing drunkenly at the crowd and then slammed her mouth against a man, making the woman cringe away. "Anko! What the hell are you trying to do? You damn whore! Get over here and tell me!"
The ninja in question looked over from the other side of the room, shaking her head in faked deafness. "Hur, Kurenai? I can't here you over this slamming music!" Suddenly she was standing next to the red-eyed woman, an arm slung companionably around the taller woman's shoulder.
"Have you seen Asuma? I lost him when Genma wanted everyone to dance." She said, sighing. "I'm sure he won't get into trouble, but if you could just leave your date…Oh!" Anko covered her mouth in mock horror, "It seems you can go find Asuma for me."
Kurenai followed her eyes, sputtering when she found Hayao talking to a group of women, each listening to him in avid fascination. He did seem a little uncomfortable, chuckling nervously, but it didn't look as if he could get away from the hoard of women. "Why do I have to find Asuma? Why can't you?"
"It's my party, I just can't leave!" Anko said, pushing Kurenai in a direction that led outside. "There are some guests outside, so don't kill him when you find him. I'll get in trouble if I wake up the neighbors!" She yelled, sliding the door closed behind Kurenai before she could object.
'Little slut. I'm going to kill her after I find Asuma and get him away from that hussy!' She halted, near a table filled with refreshments, and grabbed a drink. 'I'm doing it for his protection. I've had to look out for him since we were kids; of course I'm going to feel a bit defensive.' Kurenai nodded and drained her drink, still looking for the cloud of smoke that showed where Asuma was. So she searched, her mind still lingering on her last thought.
Surprisingly, Kurenai found Asuma in the swing seat that Kakashi had received from a grateful town when he solved their water crisis. He wasn't alone; she cursed quietly, but was sitting with the red haired woman.
And he wasn't smoking.
Kurenai stopped for a moment, shock holding her in place, before quickly ducking behind a well-placed table. Ninja parties were always designed with hiding in mind, must be their "always on edge" sense of keeping alive. Physically and socially.
She peeked over the top of the table, using her ultra ninja skills to spy on the two. "What are they doing?" She whispered, trying to move closer but not finding anywhere else to hide behind. "Whatever it is, Asuma doesn't look that happy."
In fact, Asuma looked like he was going to keel over any minute, leaning on the woman as if she were his last lifeline. His face was pale, very unusual for the man who went outside in the sun during this time of the year, and he looked like he was in incredible pain, wincing every few seconds.
'She killed him! That bitch killed Asuma! That's my job!' Reassured of what was happening, she was hurting Asuma, Kurenai strode from behind her hiding place, ready to deal with the woman who was trying to stea-hurt Asuma.
"Hello, Asuma." She blinked, figuring out who this woman was, she had worked with her, "Why, hello, Hiashi." She smiled sweetly, hiding her nervous tick from the two ninjas in front of her.
Hiashi looked up from Asuma, her eyes wide, and stuttered when she saw whom it was. "Kurenai-san! I didn't hear you come outside. Asuma isn't doing well…" She drifted off, squeaking when Asuma slumped over into her lap. "I think it might have been from him eating something weird."
The older woman bent over, lifting an eyelid and letting it drop when all she saw was the white eyeball. "Really? When did he have a smoke last?" Kurenai asked nonchalantly, wincing when she heard the man's name with out a title at the end, ignoring the pout from Hiashi as she touched her date.
"He gave up smoking for me, it's not proper for someone to smoke while on a date." The red head said happily, pulling the limp body back over to her. "Also, I wasn't going to go out with him, so he stopped to make me happy." She said firmly, reminding Kurenai that she didn't come here with Asuma like she usually did.
"Right." The jounin said, unimpressed with the details of their meeting. "I'm going to take him home. He's sick and it's probably from that last mission he came back from." She jerked Asuma out of the other's arms and gently lifted him, "Why don't you go back inside and let me deal with this problem. I doubt you could bring him home, if you knew where it was."
Hiashi grimaced and stood up, fury coloring her face almost to the same shade as her hair, "Just because you know where he lives doesn't mean that you can control where he goes! I'm going out with him on a date, so I'll ask someone else if he's sick or not!
"I can't believe you would stoop so low to try and steal him from me!" The edict teacher responded, stomping her foot and grabbing Asuma back from Kurenai. "I'm keeping him."
Kurenai sighed, rubbing her forehead, "If you don't believe me, go ask someone inside." She gestured with a hand back to the party, "But if he has to stay here until you do, I'm staying with him since you didn't even know he was sick." She continued, smirking slightly at the other's frustrated look.
"Fine." Hiashi replied, turning on one foot to stalk back to the party, leaving Kurenai alone with Asuma.
Kurenai sighed, a different sort that the previous one, and relaxed onto the chair that Hiashi and Asuma had been sitting on only a while ago. "You are such an idiot." She said quietly, paying no attention to the people milling about. "I swear, you do all these things just to keep me on my toes.
"But you're my idiot." She whispered, leaning back in the chair to wait for the return of her new enemy in love.
Naruto felt his brain frying as he looked from one person to the other. One he knew was Iruka-sensei, still staring at the two others with a bored expression. But the new man, who had just appeared in the room, was not Kakashi-sensei as Naruto thought. He was someone who he had never seen before.
Dark hair fell into black eyes, making them being darker from the unnatural shade created from the hair. A smirk graced the pale lips and a row of white teeth was seen. The expression soon turned serious, and a sigh came from the parted lips.
"Dobe, what the hell is wrong with you?" The voice, still the same, came from the new Sasuke's mouth.
Naruto felt his jaw drop farther, understanding that this was still his other team member. He crept slowly over to the much taller teen, "What did you do?" He whispered, sneaking a glance at Sasuke's new figure, almost falling over when he saw how tight the old clothing was on the genin's body.
Eyes narrowed and a fine eyebrow lifted at the remark, "What do you mean? I used my sharingan, that's what." His arms crossed, "Only unlike Iruka-sensei," He glared at the older male, "I can change back whenever I want."
The blonde looked at both teens, now looking older than him, and growled. "This is crap, I can't stay with you two in here." He growled, moving around the room to grab a coat that was lying on the floor, "I need to go somewhere."
"And where would you go?" Sasuke asked, stretching and arching his back in a languid motion. "Nowhere." He stated, relaxing against the wall.
Naruto growled and aimed a kick at the transformed boy, his momentum being halted by a flat palm. "I'm going to kill you!" He screamed, aiming another attack that simply got blocked. He kept forgetting that Sasuke was taller now and could somehow bend more in this form.
Sasuke sighed, bored from the fight, and moved out of Naruto's room, walking down to the kitchen to open the fridge. He was looking for something, obviously, and ignored Naruto when he followed.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, baka?" He screeched, closing the refridgerator door. "That's my food, and you can't have any!" Naruto ignored the sound of footsteps behind him, facing the current threat in front of him.
The black haired teen tilted his head to the side, peeling an orange without looking, "I get hungry after using my family skill, so sue me." He commented, placing the peel, all in one piece, onto the counter. "Besides, not like you're going to eat this stuff." The Uchiha parted the fruit, popping it in his mouth.
Naruto huffed and looked over at Iruka, who was trying to yawn without anyone seeing, "What are you going to do? Try and sneak off with some of my food too?"
"Nah." Iruka waved off the boy. "I'm probably going to go and check out Kakashi-san's house." He stretching his arms above his head, yawning again, "He's probably back from whatever mission he had. And if he isn't, I'll just walk in like usual."
Sasuke continued to chew on his fruit while Naruto sputtered. "You know Kakashi-sensei? Why didn't you tell us? Then we could have left you there and not have worried." He pouted and leaned against the counter next to Sasuke, ignoring the closeness of the taller boy.
"I was over Kakashi's house?" Iruka asked, almond shaped eyes widening. "I don't remember that…" He muttered, looking over at the door in interest, "Anyway, Kakashi's never home, so me and Anko usually hang out there to make use of his stuff. It's his own fault for being an ANBU." The chunin shrugged and sauntered over to the door.
He looked over his should at the two, tapping the fronts of his sandals on the mat to shift the shoes back, "I guess you both can come, that illusion is very convincing, and I know Anko-chan will have fun with a little kid." He said dully, opening the door. "Whatever, I'll see you there." And the door swung shut after the nineteen year old wandered out.
"We have to follow him." Sasuke said, sucking on his finger after popping in the last part of the orange. He pushed off the counter and walked over to the door, his new body covering the ground easily.
Naruto sputtered and followed his teammate, pulling on his jacket. "I know, I know… It's our mission until Kakashi-sensei comes home. To watch after Iruka-sensei and make sure he doesn't get into trouble."
He locked the door after him, pocketing his key, and dashed after Sasuke. Suddenly, he stopped in the middle of the road. "Sakura-chan is at Kakashi-sensei's house. And she hasn't seen Iruka-sensei at this age yet." He shivered and felt his body go numb, "We have to go, to protect Iruka-sensei."
End of Chapter Notes
Yeah, school's over and I might actually be writing this summer! My body and brain screams "NO" but my conscience keeps saying, "If you don't, they might find you some day and hurt you." So... The next chapter might not take two months to come out! Except, I also have to go work on "Nocturne", and I haven't posted in that one since February.
Also, I just now have been demanded by my friend to finish my comic, "The Adventures of Little Dutch Boy Lee" And give it to her. I might post this crazy adventure, complete with cross dressing, faries and googly rocks, on my deviantart account. My account name is DC-Chan, if you want to look. Go ahead, leave a comment telling me to hurry up on writing instead of looking at pictures.
Before I forget, and you thought I forgot, I have another review number for you guys to reach until I start writing. I am SlothGirl, I fight working with the power of a sloth! Try and meet 150 this time, hopefully you won't so I can take a longer break this time.
And now you guys are on the back burner for the moment... Again...D'OH!
...Hey, I think I found some lichen growing on me...