Chapter 3 – In the Wake of All You Fear

It was another morning, and the hesitating sun was watery and heatless. It had been days since the Kyuubi had been released, but nature seemed no closer to recovering. The horizon was still the color of spoiled milk, ashy and choked with the smoke of old fires. Rising against this backdrop was what remained of the guardian trees, charred skeleton vestiges of what had once been a barrier separating the village form the natural forest.

In the village itself, the whole community moved as though under a heavy stone. From their outskirts, Iruka emerged, walking with the crowd filing toward a hastily assembled platform. Two shinobi were standing atop the structure, looking down with red-lidded expressions they had made hard for this gathering and these people.

"Line up. We'll give out all we have. It's up to you to make it last."

Iruka eyed the small quantity of boxes lying at their feet, at least two already half-smashed and spilling their contents. But rations were rations, and so he took his place alone amidst the bereaved adults and half-families. All had come for what remained of Konohagokure's emergency foodstuff, and for the clean water that should have gathered in the cistern for just such an emergency.

There was some compassion in face of the man who looked at Iruka when he reached the front – a child still too plastered with filth to belong to anyone anymore. Gently, he reached out and pushed back the longish bangs so he could see into the Iruka's eyes. "How many?" he dared ask, quietly and without much hope. Then some recognition filled his face. "You're Umino's boy."

Iruka did not allow his eyes to flicker. "He's dead, and I'm just one."

The other shinobi distributing food turned to see what was holding up the line. Eyes that had been forged in ice to cover grief bore down. "How many?" he spat, without prelude.

Iruka repeated himself, "One."

The next words very nearly shook him out of his façade of calm. "How many adults?"

Lost, Iruka shook his head. "B-but –" he tried to murmur, but with a condemning shake of his head, the shinobi jabbed a finger toward the end of the line.

"We don't have enough for you. We have to save it for those who need it more," he said, and then he turned his back, final and awful in his judgment.

Iruka was shaking, his muscles trembling in the face of what had happened. His eyes stung, but the shame of tears was held off by the smallest package being pressed into his hands. He looked up at the one who had recognized his father's name. Then, numbly, he looked down at the tiny ration.

"Careful, little one," the adult said, and ruffled Iruka's hair in the last show of compassion that he would feel for a long time. "Careful with that. Now run, and take care as best you can."

And Iruka did run, out of the line with the package clutched to his chest. Yet when the water reserve came into view, his shoulders slumped. Two men ahead of him were standing in a defeated way, looking over the pale, glistening pool. One, young with pale blond stubble and worry lines at his eyes, shook his head heavily. "It's been contaminated by the runoff from the battle."

The other sighed. His hand was a mangled stump, poorly bandaged. Iruka couldn't determine how many of his digits remained. "We can't drink this," he said.

More people were gathering now, finding, as he had found, no refuge in the water. He felt the press of their despair against his back, along with the residual anger that was beginning to burn. Faces that had been kind twisted, gentle hands pushed and voices rose. Iruka slipped away. He shuddered, but felt no sorrow. The apathy ached, but it was a dull, failing thing. He clung tighter to the diminutive package with his uninjured arm.

The recent destruction had made the village more labyrinthine than before. It had always been a complex structure; now it was a maze of dark, narrow streets that often ended in piles of debris. Iruka navigated them, avoiding only the deepest shadows.

Before long, he felt his steps slacken and stopped to tilt his head up at the sky. A deeper grey was stirring it, heavy cloud-cover, until the firmament itself looked like a wound. Rain was coming, he guessed, and lots of it. But not the merciful kind that might save them. Too much burning. It would take another two rainfalls at least to clean the air, maybe more.

Iruka knew he needed to find shelter, somewhere dry for his parcel if not for himself, but he felt so heavy. His legs trembled, and pain spiked through his back, his wrists, and especially his arm – amateurishly and hastily set by a preoccupied medic-nin days before. His joints were painful, and he became exhausted easily now. The boundless energy of youth was tied up in food and health and hope, and he felt their absence mightily.

Squatting down, he took deep breaths, one after another. Burning lids slid shut. Just for a moment, he gave into his body's cry for rest. Just for a moment, and then…

A hot, heavy hand against his neck made Iruka jerk, and he staggered as he realized he wasn't alone. Heart pounding, he blinked into the face of an unknown man who had approached his averted back and was now grinning, drawing nearer still.

"Come're, boy," the stranger commanded. A ragged gash had torn his face from ear to chin, and the foul smell of infection pushed Iruka back another step.

A hand groped toward the package Iruka held pressed to his chest, though whether it was for the food or the boy that the man reached, Iruka didn't know. He lurched back as if burned when fingers brushed against his bare arm – despairing at the cold feel of the wall that suddenly reared up against his back.

Glad of the advantage, the stranger let his open face sag open, leering. "Poor babe," he crooned, and his voice was as affected and diseased as the festering puss-maddened wheal that split his skin. His expression was alive with tentative longing. "Father dead, is'e? Oh, poor boy. No mother's tears, yes, I'm sure."

Browned fingernails caked with dirt fingered the package again, but only for a moment. Then his hand darted out like a snake, snatching and holding Iruka'a face with unexpected strength. The crown of his head came back hard against the wall, and he whimpered, a sound that only made the man mutter with laughter.

"So lucky," he was saying. The whites of his eyes were jaundiced, more animal than man. Hand shaking, he petted the dark brown hair falling down over the Iruka's forehead, the pale cheek. "Too small, but no matter."

Unable to bear his touch, Iruka cried out, his voice a shriek of fear in the stifling, secret air of the ally. It rose like an escaping falcon, and his charka – desperate with his need – rose with it; powerful, more than he'd ever successfully sustained before.

Afterward, Iruka stayed, crouching and trembling. He was bleeding, and he held tight to the sodden bandage around his left arm. The tear trails on his dirty face were dry. And the corpse lay there, just there, on the ground, as live and fearful as a deadbolt.

Wordlessly, he stood. He looked for the little square of rations, but darkness and shadow seemed to shroud all the crevices. Nothing. He looked back at the creature he had killed.

He'd seen death, but there was nothing quite like seeing it stare back at you out a cadaver of your own making. He searched for regret in his panting heart, even as the terror was replaced with something frigid and smothering. He toed the creature with his poor sandal, willing himself not to throw up or to spit on it. There wasn't even the thought of searching for valuables. The jounin would have turned away anyone so vile.

Besides, it made Iruka shudder with revulsion even to think of touching him.

Paler, hungrier, and more aware, Iruka turned and made his way onward, wondering where to go.

The wooden planks against his back were rough, and the nighttime sky filtered through an open ceiling. A few supporting beams still hung precariously overhead, providing some arguable shelter, but those rafters wouldn't last long. Already, the wood was wet and rotting around him.

He looked up into the drizzle, filtered though cloud cover and the mottling of dim stars. His damp clothing clung to him comfortlessly, and his hair cried long, bitter rivulets down his face. He stuck out his tongue, and grimaced at the foul taste of the water.

This ruin was a burned-out shell of a once comforting place. Nothing so fragile as photographs had survived, though Iruka had searched for anything that would remind him of what this building had once been. Anything that would have proved to him that this had once been his home.

Vainly. The fox had claimed even the memory of safety.

The frightening trek through the now unfamiliar streets of Konoha rose to his mind unbidden, and he couldn't suppress the convulsion that shook him. Vulnerability, sick helplessness, pain; he felt them in turn, and then he remembered how it felt to administer death.

A small, lost sound left him like a sigh, and Iruka let his leaden head sink to his torn knees. They still oozed, fresh with the rain, but he hardly noticed as it smeared against his cheek. That, at least, was one good thing about the rain. If it washed away even a little of the blood...

The feel of moisture stayed with him through the night, making his dreams as wet and cold as his huddled body. Eyes half-lidded in the darkness, tearless and hard, he listened for danger even in sleep.

Ha ha. Just like a good nin.

Blameless blood cries tears

That nobody hears

Laughing war beast licks up the drops that they're crying