Ninth part
Iruka was waiting. He did not know what he was waiting for, but he was waiting anyway.
He was sitting, propped up by many pillows, staring by the window, watching the clouds taking the shapes of imaginary and mythological beasts, growing and growing in the darkened skies, heavy with rain threatening to fall, menacing with promises of bad weather for several days. Sometimes, a leaf colored by the autumn would fly into his field of vision, appearing just to disappear right away, carried by shifting winds.
Autumn was solidly settling itself on Fire Country, and Iruka did not remember seeing the end of the summer.
He sighed, flexing his right hand, hurting from too many writing after a too long time of non-activity.
The scrolls and books laying open in his lap were suddenly very heavy. He had enough of this pointless search for a jutsu that would fit with the description of the one which had been used – which had been used on him, and on Megumi who had just made it to Chuunin the year before, and on this girl who couldn't have been more than ten, and on the leader of the caravan…
He interrupted his thoughts where they were. It would take long for time to fade those memories away. He did not need to relive it through his mind's eyes – it had never done any good to help keeping bad memories at bay.
His arm and leg, under the bandages, began to itch again. He had asked for the painkillers to be stopped. The pain was bearable, and he could now eat without anxiously wondering if he would keep his meal down this time. The medics had told him that he would be released from the hospital somewhere during the next week, but that he wouldn't be able to go back on missions before the end of the year.
He was glad for the news, being stuck in this place was getting him stir-crazy, and he even did not really mind not been able to go back on mission – taking a double shift in the mission room and lean a hand to Izumo and Kotetsu with the paperwork of the Hokage would put perfectly capable ninja back on the field when he could take his load of so hated 'desk-nin' work without problems.
Shizune had dropped by just once, to tell him that he was waited in at the mission desk as soon as he was feeling up to. She knew the extend of the damages made on his mobility by the jutsu, as well as he knew them. He would have troubles just to walk or to bend his limbs in the first weeks, if not months; not to mention that jutsus with hand seals were out of question until the chakra paths in his left arm and leg came back to normal. Just time would ease that all, the medicnins had already done everything they could.
So a desk job looked fine for now.
He put the heavy books and scrolls back on the nightstand, piling them up to fit on the narrow piece of furniture, adding pen and notebook on the top of the haphazardly done stack. He mentally crossed his fingers for the pile not to end on the floor – he did not want to find out if he could get out of bed, walk and squat to retrieve fallen books right now.
He was rather feeling like sleeping – again -, helped by the weather. He pulled the blankets on him again. The hospital seemed to be always too cold, too clean, too white. It always gave him the feeling to be cold, particularly in times like those, when he couldn't really be sure of his body feelings.
He pulled the blankets up to his mouth, leaving just his upper face visible – this upper face turned towards the window. His right hand slid under the warm blanket, hugging himself, careful of the healing ribs still there.
He wondered where was Naruto now, and what was he doing. Hatake had not said anything about Naruto when he came – when was that by the way? Three days ago? Or more? Iruka sighed softly under the blanket. Painkillers or not, his sense of time was still screwed up. Events from a week ago were blurry. So Hatake must has came more than three days ago, because exactly three days ago, Iruka had seen Shizune, then two days ago it had been Sakura, with books coming from the Hokage; but he must has come less than a week ago.
Iruka shifted slightly, transferring most of his lighter weight on his right side, almost completely facing the window.
He would need to go to the monument once back on his feet, to go present his respects to his parents, since he had been unable to do so on the tenth. He realized that his apartment would be a real mess when he would be released, and that no food in his place would be safe to taste.
He stifled a yawn, eyes watering. He blinked several times, then he forget about it, half-closed eyes staring outside.
Hatake had looked strange because it had been the tenth… The older man seemed to still beat himself about Sasuke, but he was also beating himself for others things. Every ninja had a closet full of ghosts and skeletons… maybe Iruka would try to talk to him about all this stuff one day.
Iruka yawned again, trying to refrain him from doing so. He wondered if Kakashi had been serious when saying that we would treat him to ramen. He wondered, with an already half-asleep brain, if the jounin was out there, on a mission. He wondered if he would see him again before being released.
He did not bother to refrain his yawn this time – things were beginning to lost their focus, his environment becoming blurry, the window no more than a big grey square…
Iruka fall asleep as the first droplets of rain began to soundly hit the roofs around.
As it's the holidays for me, the chapters of Light the way should come more often… 'Desk-nin' borrowed from Scribbles. See you next time.