Iruka, with his hair messy and eyes swollen and red walked cautiously through the ruined village. His parent's were dead, he was already informed of that, and with the message all his fear died away, like all his other feelings. So now an eleven year old boy was completely numb across the cracked streets of the village. He felt nothing, everything had been swallowed by a black emptiness. He didn't see the bodies around him, he didn't hear the sobs of children like him. On the inside he was dead.

It was a grey morning, even the blood splattered on the ground had lost its red color and dissolved into the grey that surrounded the people of Konohakagure. The shinobis collected the bodies of the fallen, there were tears, sobs, haunted, swollen eyes, prayers whispered, raspy breaths, things that would not matter as life went on but that now mattered more than anything in the world.

The little boy however did not see any of this as he walked almost in a trance, not caring, not even hurting anymore. Unlike the other orphans he didn't cry, and that caught the attention of the adults, no one said anything though.

Iruka made his way slowly to the village gate, or what was left of it, and that, frankly, wasn't much. Then, as if in a dream, he walked across the blood-soaked earth towards the place where he had last seen his parents. Flashes of the night before, of the screams, of the pain, and of the monstrous eyes occupied his mind. His head swam, he could almost hear the voices of the fighters. The grunts of men dying. Everything, the Kyuubi, the blood, the flashes of metal, the red chakra, the fire, everything span in his head faster and faster. Suddenly, not even thinking he started running, faster and faster, blindly to somewhere his instincts were leading him, but the voices, did not leave. He ran, completely out of breath, and suddenly stopped abruptly. He looked down, to the body that he had reached and his mind calmed down suddenly. The voices disappeared, and Iruka was left alone, panting beside the body of his mother. He looked around helplessly, then back at the body. He took a few steps away from it only to come up on the body of his father. He dropped to his knees, between his father and mother, his eyes clamped shut.

Moments that seemed rather like years passed in silence. The shinobi who had come to gather the bodies of the field stood back, and let the boy come to terms with what happened. Finally, as a gust of fresh wind blew in his face Iruka opened his eyes. He glanced at his father, then at his mother. With a trembling hand he reached out and took the cracked forehead protector of his father. His mother's forehead protector was nowhere to be seen, it must have torn of during the battle. Slowly the boy reached out to the strange kunai that lay beside his mother's still open hand. He took it in his fingers and clamped his hand shut over the handle, and suddenly the tears that head not come since he got the message came. They ran freely down his cheeks and splattered on the ground, soaked into the hiate-ate he had in one hand and bounced off the blade of the kunai he held into the other.

He remained like that for a long time.

---

Iruka's eyes focused. He plunged his hand into the kunai holster on his thigh and ran his fingers along that often used piece of metal. He still carried his mother's kunai all these years later. He closed his eyes for a fleeting second, and smiled sadly to himself. Pain was something that shinobi just couldn't escape from. But at least there were memories they could tent. And there were hopes that grew out of the ashes.

Uzumaki Naruto, the container of the Kyuubi, wearing his bright orange jacket, was only a street away, doing what he could to help.


AN: Well, this is it, a hopeful note at the end, hope you enjoyed. And I hope I didn't mess up poor 'Ruka too much...There is an illustration to this piece on my devart page, but it's not the best, I'm not a very great artist.