Author's prologue – I didn't come up with the Bloodlimit for a certain character, Lithius Osmius did with his story Shattered Eyes, story number 3922662. Read it, it may be incomplete, but it's pretty darned cool.
Again, these are the scenes for a story that never made it off the runway.
Bit of a shame, as I've never seen this particular team-up done before…
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A Teacher's Student
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Naruto swore as he picked himself up and rubbed at his aching ass. If that was what was going to happen each time, he needed help.
A pink flash caught his attention and he slid silently through the bushes, appearing behind Sakura.
"Hey, Sakura-cha-ow!"
Sakura withdrew her fist from atop his head. "What do you want, you useless idiot?"
Naruto felt his heart start to break, but with the stubbornness he was famed for, he kept going.
"Listen, I can't beat Kakashi alone, but maybe if we…"
"Hell, no." Sakura snarled. "You are not going to get between me and my Sasuke-kun. Go back to the Academy and leave us real ninja alone."
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Naruto hid a grin as he saw Sasuke buried up to his neck. Walking over, he knelt down.
"Kakashi's good, but if we team up…"
"Why the hell would I want to team up with a useless loser like you?" Sasuke snarled as he struggled to free himself. Naruto stared at him, then stood up and walked away.
"Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit…"
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The bell rang and Kakashi picked up the genjutsu-paralysed Sakura and placed her by the three posts, cancelling the technique he had used on her as he did so before vanishing. A few seconds later, he returned with a dirt-covered Sasuke dangling from his grip.
"Kakashi!"
"Iruka?" Kakashi said in surprise as the scarred teacher stormed up to him. "I'm in the middle of something, can it wait?"
"Why the hell did Naruto just re-enroll for another year in the Academy?!"
Kakashi's visible eye widened. "Wait. What?"
"You heard me!" The chunin ground out, somehow managing to make the Jonin rather nervous.
"Hah! Serves the loser right. I knew he wasn't cut out to be a ninja." Sakura said, only to be cut off.
"Well, I guess you aren't either. Since Iruka-san's here, you may as well ask him for a re-enrollment form as you both failed. However, I am under orders to take on Sasuke as my apprentice even if he fails, which he did, by the way."
Sasuke growled at the revelation.
"And Naruto?" Iruka growled, causing Kakashi to sigh.
"He quit my test, that means that I'll be recommending he finds a different career. Ninja do not simply quit. His files said that he was not up to scratch, this just proves it."
"You mean this file?"
Kakashi accepted the folder and leafed through the half-dozen pages. "Yep, that's the one."
"The one missing all of my reports on him? The one with the obviously faked grades?"
Kakashi froze. "Ummmmm…"
"You disgust me." Iruka growled as he stalked off, pausing only to half-turn. "You really, really disgust me, Kakashi. I thought you were a better person than that. After all Naruto's done for the village and the burden he carries…"
Kakashi felt about three inches tall as Iruka stormed off.
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Hiruzen stared at the file before him, then up at the man standing in front of him.
"I always believed that you were better than you claimed, not least because of your time in ANBU, but this… Are you certain you wish for this?"
A nod was his answer and Hiruzen turned to the second man.
"It's troublesome, but he is more than good enough to be a Jonin. He passed all the tests with flying colours."
Hiruzen nodded, then picked up his pen to scrawl his signature on the final sheet.
"Very well. Congratulations on proving yourself worthy of the rank of Jonin… Umino Iruka. It will be difficult to find a replacement for you at the Academy."
"I was due to rotate through the mission desk anyway." Iruka shrugged. "Besides, I haven't had a real chance to cut loose with my Hyakurai. Naruto-kun keeps getting into bizarre scrapes, so I'm sure that something will come up."
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Apprenticeship
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"Naaaarrruuuuutoooooooooo."
Naruto rolled over in his bed.
"Waaaake u-uuuuup."
Naruto snuggled against his pillow, ignoring the gentle voice.
"UZUMAKI!"
Naruto snapped from sleep to fully awake at a speed that any Jonin would have envied, leaping from his bed as he did so.
"Aaaaah! Iruka-sensei! My alarm clock didn't go off! I'm late! I'm… I'm… not due at the Academy until next week. What's going on?"
"I got promoted to Jonin." Iruka said, then he found himself being hugged with a force that made his ribs creak.
"Wow! Jonin! Wait, that means… you won't be at the Academy…"
"Neither will you." Iruka said and Naruto froze. "Now, get dressed and we'll begin testing you. I refuse to let my apprentice continue to lag behind, especially after he showed me that he could learn a kinjutsu in a matter of hours.
Naruto froze. "…apprentice…?"
"Yes, you idiot." Iruka smiled, ruffling Naruto's hair. "That's why I got my promotion. I know you have potential, and I'm going to turn you into a proper ninja. Now, get washed and dressed while I fix breakfast, then we'll get your ID picture and start seeing where you really are and what you need to learn."
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Iruka cradled his head in his hands as Naruto watched him worriedly.
"Naruto, I'm sorry." Iruka finally said. "I failed you, I should have noticed…"
Naruto sighed. "Nah, it was the other teachers that screwed with my learning. Had to work most of it out myself. Didn't even realise my Henge wasn't the same as everyone else's until a month or so before my last exam. No-one told me."
Iruka nodded and leaned back in his chair, eyes closed in thought. After a few minutes, he nodded.
"Naruto, we'll forget about the leaf exercise for now. With your chakra level, it's worse than useless. Instead, we'll do tree-walking and water-walking to start with. Your taijutsu is…"
"Awful." Naruto supplied and Iruka nodded.
"Yeah, but I know someone who can help. He can train you in the mornings, it'll also get your fitness levels up. We can use your clones to help you learn to read properly at the same time…"
"What? How?"
Iruka looked at Naruto for a long moment. "The Kage Bunshin means that whatever the clone learns, the user earns when the clone dispells. We'll need to test to see how many you can dispell safely, but we can use it to really help you mentally. I know you're intelligent, some of those pranks you pulled were genius-level, and I speak as a former prankster myself."
"So… you're going to teach me to be awesome?"
Iruka shook his head and Naruto's eyes widened.
"No, I'm going to teach you to be so good, that awesome won't even begin to describe you-ooof!"
Naruto's glomp knocked Iruka and the chair he was sitting in onto the floor.
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Training
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Hinata's eyes widened as she saw the two figures enter the training field.
The taller figure was Umino Iruka, her former teacher at the Academy, but he was not in his usual outfit. Instead, he was wearing black sandals and trousers with his Hitai-ate serving as his belt, a black sleeveless T-shirt and a long, sleeveless high-collared silvery Haori (with attached pauldrons) that reached down to his knees. Silver greaves protected his shins while fingerless gauntlets adorned his arms. When he paused and turned to look round, it revealed a symbol on his back that Hinata had never seen before, but which looked like the Kiri symbol bisected by a stylised bolt of lightning.
The other figure, though, was the one that caused her breath to catch in her throat. The blonde was clad almost identically to Iruka with only the colours and symbols being different. Where Iruka's outfit was silver, Naruto's was rusty orange with a black spiral set into a white circle as his symbol.
"Kamis above!" Kurenai breathed in shock. "That outfit… It's the Lightning Rat!"
"What?" Kiba asked and Kurenai shook her head.
"The Zi no Rai… an ANBU who was able to manipulate lightning without needing hand-seals… we all thought that he was an Uchiha since he vanished just before the clan was wiped out…"
Iruka spotted them and waved, as did Naruto.
Hinata eep'd.
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"Good." Iruka said as Naruto dispelled the last of the fifty clones that had been practicing water-walking. "Now…"
"Iruka? What are you doing dressed like that?"
Iruka froze, then turned to see Kakashi and Sasuke staring at them.
"Kakashi."
Kakashi walked over and slowly circled Iruka, then he nodded.
"It is you. Why didn't you tell me?"
"It wasn't important." Iruka shrugged, earning a confused look from both genin. An instant later, he grinned. "Okay, since you're here, let's test out our genin. A simple race, to the tree on the far side of the lake and back. Agreed?"
Kakashi shrugged and Iruka pointed at the ground. A thin tendril of lightning scorched a line in the dirt and Iruka motioned for the two students to get ready.
"Using whatever you've learned, run to the tree and back." He said. "Winner gets bragging rights."
Sasuke snorted even as Naruto's eyes widened.
He'd just finished learning water-walking…
"Go!"
Sasuke shot off, his path curving to run along the very edge of the lake, then motion caught his eye. Glancing sideways, he lost control and tripped, skidding across the ground, although his gaze never left Naruto, who was dashing across the lake as if it were a solid surface.
"Impressive." Kakashi allowed. "Only two weeks, and already water-walking."
Sasuke pulled himself up onto his knees and stared in shocked envy at Naruto, who had reached the tree and was on his way back.
"Winner, Naruto." Iruka declared as Sasuke finally made it to his feet and stormed over.
"You cheated!"
"No such thing." Kakashi said and Sasuke looked at him as if Kakashi had personally betrayed him. "We're ninja, we can do anything we're not specifically banned from. Iruka-san never forbade running across the lake…"
Iruka smirked.
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The Mission
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Asuma glanced at his fellow Jonin-sensei as their combined group walked through the gates of Konoha.
Although Iruka's promotion to Jonin had come as a surprise to many, the revelation that he had been the Zi no Rai had caused many people to re-evaluate him. His choice of apprentice (and Asuma smirked at the sight of Ino starting to drool over Naruto before forcibly re-focusing on the mission) had come as even more of a shock, but those who had seen the duo in action agreed that Naruto was probably at solid-chunin level already.
And his reputation as a miracle-worker had been cemented when he managed to get Naruto out of the day-glow here-I-am-kill-me-now orange outfits he had worn. Although the orange was still there, it looked…
"Dammit, Naruto!" Ino half-shouted as she forced herself to turn away from her fellow genin. "Stop making me want to give up on Sasuke-kun!"
Asuma smirked.
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"Ninja. Two of them."
Asuma nodded. Although he had never been in ANBU himself, he had heard the tales. If the Zi no Rai said that someone was there, then they were there.
No ninja had ever managed to cloak their own bio-electrical field, after all.
"Options?"
"Capture and question." Iruka stated. "I'll take them down as we pass."
Asuma nodded again, then hid a snort as a puddle came into view.
"Amateurs." Iruka said, electricity started to spark around his hand.
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"…and I can't take all of you."
Asuma sighed. "Dammit. Any ideas?"
"Naruto, you're walking." Iruka said, earning a surprised look from almost everyone except Naruto, who gave a very dramatic sigh. "Ino, get on his back, he's carrying you. That should let the rest of us ride the boat."
Ino gave Asuma a pleading look.
"You sure about this?"
"Naruto has more chakra than the Hokage."
Asuma whistled. With that much chakra, there was no way that Naruto could be anything other than a monster when it came to stamina and general energeticness.
"Ino, get on his back. Try practicing your sensory techniques as we go."
Ino sighed and placed her hands on Naruto's shoulders, using them to help her leap onto his backand wrap her legs around him.
"You'd better not touch my butt." She warned.
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"Eight choices. Liver, lungs, spine, clavicle vein, jugular vein, brain, kidneys, heart. Which one should I go after?"
"I got this." Iruka said as he vanished into the thick mist. Asuma shook his head.
"Hey, Naruto, you know the Great Breakthrough? Excellent, back-to-back and let's clear the air."
Asuma flashed through the hand-signs, feeling Naruto doing the same and the two of them released the jutsu at the same instant, blasting the mist away and revealing Iruka and Zabuza facing each other on the lake.
Zabuza's eyes widened.
"Where the hell did you get an Umino Battle-coat from? And how did you get matching gauntlets?"
"I inherited them." Iruka said and Zabuza froze, looking down at the lake, then at the giant sword he was holding.
"You… you're kidding…"
Iruka's hands were suddenly wreathed in lightning and Zabuza swallowed.
"Oh fuck."
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Afternote – Yeah, these scenes are all that I have for this plot-bunny.I always thought that Iruka was under-used, but I probably over-powered him for this story.
As for his nickname… I probably screwed it up as I'm not very good with translating.
Hope that someone adopts this…
Iruka and Naruto's coats are now on DeviantArt, although my drawing skills suck...