Chapter 2 – Sheltered By A Secret You Didn't Know

"What did you want to talk about, Naruto?"

It was the first thing that Iruka said once the table was cleared and the electric lights dimed in favor of less intrusive lamp light. In the background, soft, breathy sighs kept the house from being too quiet, yet Naruto still felt uncomfortable. Even after so long considering, he felt as though he was on the edge of a precipice.

"I've been thinking about you a lot lately, Sensei," he said finally.

"Oh?" His teacher's smile was lop-sided, the one he wore when he was sure you were up to something.

Seeing it never failed to make Naruto smile himself, and afterwards speaking came a little easier. He gestured around the apartment, to the sink full of dishes and the table surrounded by chairs and the ambient sounds. "Why do you put up with all of us?"

There was more than one response Naruto could have fathomed, but he was still surprised when Sensei started laughing. Not a loud laugh, but a kind of guffawing that carried on for a while in honest amusement. "Naruto," the man admonished, rubbing his eyes. "What on earth made you think of asking that?"

"It's a good question. We've invaded your house, we eat your food. You were barely a kid yourself when I met you, though at the time you seemed so tall." Naruto paused, remembering how awestruck he had been, though in retrospect he realized that Iruka hadn't even been fifteen. "For all the years I've known you, you took care of me."

"Not always as well as I would have liked," Iruka said ruefully. "You deserved much better."

Even though he didn't say so outright, Naruto knew he was referring to their earliest days at the academy. "I understand now why you had to be careful," Naruto said. He knew that Sensei still blamed himself for those intermittent years when he had been so distant and stern, and wished that Iruka could believe that he had long since forgiven him. "But even then, you looked out for me. Why did you do it?"

"I suppose I wish someone had looked out for me."

"Did no one ever?"

Iruka looked at him, his mouth turned down. "What exactly are you asking, Naruto?"

Naruto searched for words to explain. "When I was a kid, I would watch the old soldiers. The ones who had bad scars or missing limbs."

Images bubbled up from his subconscious. Awful flashes of gnashing and mud, and the sensation of bone splintering between his teeth. Naruto shuddered. As a child, those kinds of displaced memories had been horrifying night terrors, impossibly beyond his understanding. With time he had learned to control them, but even now he would sometimes wake up, howling and bawling like a child…

"It must have been really bad," he finished, flexing his fingers against the table top. "The way it messed people up. It must have been really bad."

"Kyuubi."

Naruto flinched, but forced himself to nod. "Yeah. I was talking to Genma, and he said the people who grew up in that time, that they're –" He thought of Kakashi-sensei, and so many others. Shinobi had a high propensity for crazy anyway, but among the generation that had proceeded him, dysfunction was more a state of being than an exception to the rule. In comparison, Iruka seemed as constant as the tide. Yet his formative years had also been during a time of war.

Finally, the words he had really been wanting to ask found their voice. "What happened, Sensei?"

A faint creak from the chair as Iruka leaned back. His expression was thoughtful. "You know, I always expected you to ask me about this. You were a precocious child, always full of questions. But you never did."

"I never really liked history," Naruto admitted, "and when I finally understood, I think I just didn't want to know."

"Why the change?"

Naruto huffed. "I just don't get it. You were so good to me, Sensei. Why? And there's something secret. Genma said I should ask you."

Iruka surprised him by looking fond. "Genma, hm? I'm surprised you didn't just go looking."

Chagrin forced Naruto's chin to plunge to cover his guilt. Scratching the back of his head, he suggested, "Sounds like something Kakashi-sensei would do."

A snort; Iruka's turbulent ongoing hostilities with the sneaky copy-nin had long been a source of private amusement between them. Naruto thought that Iruka should have higher standards, while Iruka himself maintained that you couldn't always chose your friends. He was shaking his head now. "Well, I did always try to tell you that not everything has to be secrets and subterfuge. I guess I would be a hypocrite if I didn't tell you."

There was an edge of something in his voice that made Naruto ask, "Does it hurt to think about it?"

"Sometimes. It's like the ache of an old wound in bad weather." Iruka had several old wounds that bothered him from time to time. As a youngster, Naruto had witnessed him applying a hot compress to his hip, or wincing as he massaged his left knee. "It's not a time most people who survived it like to dwell on."

"No one talks about it," Naruto agreed.

"Well, it will be redefined for the history books, and it may be better that way. Not all things are meant to be preserved. There just aren't words for them."

"Sensei –" Naruto was already regretting this conversation.

Iruka, however, set a hand firmly on Naruto's forearm. "No," he said. "You have a right to hear this. It's your history too, after all. In some ways you may have more a right to this story than anyone else."

And then he began telling Naruto exactly what he had asked to hear.

The night the Kyuubi came, all of Konoha was called to battle. Not even the children, the least experienced trainees, were sparred. Every hand that could lift a weapon – a sword, a shuriken; a hammer, a hoe – had been called to stand against that which could never truly be defeated. The world-shaker, earth-breaker. Destroyer of men, of man.

The demon fox.

Iruka saw the monster through slipstream images suffused with adrenaline, snapshots captured in broken, brilliant detail. He saw the beast, quivering and molten, its massive body eclipsing the tortured sky. Knotty sinews rolled under fur burnished in the glow of the wildly burning flames, which filled the air with black smoke that stung the throats of the desperate Konoha shinobi.

The beast bore its yellow teeth and bellowed a howling roar so loud that everyone fell back, whimpering as they covered their ears, fumbling to form wards against sheer sound. In a burst of error, Iruka met the eye of the demon, a swirling hole, crazed – like a dog sick with madness. Steaming saliva dripped down from its teeth. It breathed, a throaty noise that resounded like thunder, and Iruka choked on the stench of blood and burning and decay.

Above them all, the tails swung and snapped. Tails – nine tails – that at each lightning oscillation tore through the landscape, churning up great rows of dirt and trees. It lunged, lolling its head, and the front line was decimated, bodies thrown into the air. Blood fell like rain, like the men, in pieces. Iruka heard the screams, not knowing if his own voice was among them.

Someone shouted, "We have to hold it until the Yondaime gets here!" Then the beast lunged again, and the earth ripped and buckled like a living thing under their feet. Iruka felt himself loose contact with the ground, and expected to be thrown under the feet of the monster, but instead unknown arms caught him and held him close. Even after the tremors, they didn't let go. Frightened, Iruka twisted his head back to see his rescuer.

"F-father?" he croaked.

Eyes filled with mist and rain looked down, pulling him closer against a strong chest even while another frontward assault sent men and earth flying. His father's wide, rough hand pressed against his head, shielding his face, his eyes.

Then his mother was there, her lips an unnatural shade of red. She smiled serenely even as the battle raged and said his name, – "Iruka" – yet there was a glazed look to her eyes that sent a spike of fear through Iruka, as though his heart was pumping water instead of blood. He braced her body with shaking hands.

"Father," he choked. "Father, Ma is –"

His father's back was between them and the end of the world. Casting bloodshot eyes over an armored shoulder, the man told his son, "I'll take care of your mother. You get out of here."

Impossible! Fumbling to hold onto both his weapon and his parent, Iruka shook his head. "No. I can't leave you. I'll protect her!"

Iruka would never forget his father's words. He wrenched around and barked, "Don't be a fool! Parents are supposed to protect their children!"

Iruka's mouth snapped shut, so stricken that he barely heard the hoarse call, passing from man to man in the field: "He's coming! Pull the children back!"

From her place kneeling in front of him, his mother put her head against his shoulder, gathering her strength. Then she whispered, "Okay," and slowly straightened. She looked to her husband, their dark eyes mingling, rushing at each other like two headwaters. Then there was only time for the briefest brush of fingertips through Iruka's bangs before his father's arm was around his waist, thrusting him back into the hands of another.

"Get him out of here."

In an instant, Iruka lost sight of his father. "No! Let me go! My parents are still fighting!" He was thrown to the back of the battlefield, shielded by the remaining lines of warriors. Terrified, horrified, he surged to his feet. Just in time to see the enormous light that flashed in a blinding radius from the center of the field. Just in time for the recoil to throw him on his back. Iruka's skull cracked hard against the earth and he gasped, thinking that he might be dying, knowing that he was probably alone. The darkness smothered him with that thought in mind.

Everything was gone.

When Iruka came shuddering up from unconsciousness, it was to a world of mourning. He had to heave off a heavy body that had fallen on top of him, an unintentional shield. Its eyes stared, unblinking, until Iruka tore his own away. Dazed, he wandered from the eerily quiet field and into the ruined village. The survivors were regrouping, meeting those left behind or searching for loved ones. Rumors floated on their air, snatches of conversation: "Sealed him away again," and, "Dead, no, not dead."

Iruka ignored them all.

He saw the homes, broken like toothpicks, buildings that had entire sides torn away to expose the frame. Fractures of splintered beams and crushed stone lay in piles everywhere, while small fires burned, unchallenged. For a moment he stopped and stared at a body hanging over the jagged wreckage, arm laying free. Its right side and lower body were missing, shredded away in horrible streamers so that the boy could see the meaty, dripping ribs. Drip, drop, drip. His eyes followed the blood falling from the cavity, feeling rather than hearing each drop splatter.

Someone else, a woman, pulled wretchedly at the corpse. She wailed, crying for her husband. Then, suddenly, the widow left the man and lurched toward Iruka. She snatched at him, all her weight pressing against him so that he stumbled. Her hands were a sticky mess, and she begged him with huge eyes, insane with loss. "Help him," she demanded, clinging to his clothing. Wretchedly, she pawed at the kunai still fused to Iruka's hand. "Help him. You're a nin."

Frightened, Iruka pulled away from her prying hands and frantic eyes. He shook his head at her, stepping backward even as she collapsed at his feet. He watched, helpless. He could do nothing for her. Her husband was dead.

"Why didn't you save him? You're a nin!" the widow's shriek echoed strangely in his damaged ears as he turned his back to her. He pressed down a sob of his own. Guilty. The first guilt pangs associated with survival.

After that, it was only his search that drove him forward, the last shadow of childhood wandering and the first echo of a soldier's trudge. He clasped his left arm against his side, numbly ignoring the waves of pain that sapped his remaining strength. His hair had fallen free of its band, and it was matted, damp with sweat, blood, or even saliva – he wasn't sure. He walked without being stopped. The exhausted adults seemed barely able to drag in the casualties, and they were stacked together without ceremony. None could be afforded.

Iruka stood placidly in their midst, alone in the carnage. In the end, it was the smell that drew him to the grievously wounded. He searched through the moaning people who had been spread in long parallel lines against the ground. Crushed limbs, missing extremities, the blind, the burned.

At their outskirts, Iruka found who he had been looking for. Numbly, he stood over his parents, staring with a pounding heart. Blood, blood, blood – he could feel his chest throbbing with it. He recognized his father's hitai-ate – now twisted around his neck – but not his face. He could see the muscle in his father's chest, his neck. The crumpled woman lay with limbs askew. He recognized her without effort, even with the raven hair plastered over her face.

With a low moan of thunder, the troubled sky at last found release in the rain, and cold drops began to fall from the sky upon the ruined lives and homes of the Konoha. Iruka watched it fall, harder and harder until the mud rose once again under his heels. Even as the drops splattered against his cheeks, Iruka remained silent.

He didn't cry.

He didn't cry, even when a few weary men came and removed the two bodies. Soon the smell of death would be even more real, as a new fire was lit to burn away the husks, all that remained of countless, nameless heroes.

Iruka watched the flames rise and burn, clutching at the kunai he still held in his hand, and did not turn away.

No tears for the fallen,

No praise for those soon forgotten;

The war-beast makes mass graves for many.