Chapter Twenty: Calm before the Storm
"Some choices we live not only once but a thousand times over, remembering them for the rest of our lives."
- Richard Bach
Iruka took the shortest route possible to work, making sure not to pass within visual site of the Academy because it merely depressed him. He didn't need to be in a mawkish mood. Iruka had been working for Ibiki for the past month He supposed the Hokage didn't know what else to do with them. He gripped Kokoro's hand in his; her smaller fingers held tightly in his as she walked beside him, easily keeping in step. At least there were no longer ANBU members spying on him and his family. But the mere fact that he couldn't have his old job back teaching galled him. What a strange world, where being a person of privilege and power requires one to suppress the impulse for either community or a better world.
He opened the unmarked door to the T & I Department, wearing a typical jonin outfit. Kokoro walked cheerfully beside him in a schoolgirl outfit, complete with a little kerchief and plaid skirt. Her blue pigtails bobbed merrily as she walked into the room in front of him. She couldn't really be enrolled in school, since she wasn't a child; so this had been the Hokage's solution for both them.
They turned down two corridors to the left, and then descended a narrow staircase within the bowls of Konohagakure. A few more unmarked corridors and the space opened up into a large room with a few bland desks. Iruka walked into the room, spying Mitarashi Anko sitting at her desk.
"Mornin', 'Ruka." Anko said tiredly, a stick of dango poking out of the side of her mouth.
"Moshi moshi!" Kokoro smiled at Anko and hopped up on the woman's desk.
Anko grinned merrily at the child and shoved one of her prized dango into the girl's mouth, a sign of the closeness of their relationship if there ever was one. Kokoro began chewing on it in an echo of the same movement as Mitarashi. Iruka repressed a shudder and set down both of their bento lunches on his desk, sitting down in a chair.
"Good morning, Anko," he answered as the opened the urgent and classified file that was sitting in his in-box. Iruka began glancing over the paperwork. There was a prisoner to interrogate this morning. He read over the notes from the previous agent, and then frowned.
Iruka turned and cast a glance at the purple-haired kunoichi. Apparently she had worked on the prisoner for the past eight hours and he hadn't said a peep besides name, rank and serial number. They were going to try a different tact; he was being sent in. It was a little unusual – Iruka was lower in rank after all. Anko had more experience, more training.
He waived the classified file at Mitarashi. "Hey, Anko..."
The woman looked over. There were bags under her eyes that he hadn't paid attention to before when he came in. She looked haggard and drawn.
"Eh?" Anko said, one eye closed, the other half open.
Kokoro glanced over, still munching on the dango, but braiding Anko's hair. It seemed to be soothing the woman, by the expression on her face. She looked like she was about to fall asleep in her chair; the shinobi probably had been up and working at a very demanding level for at least 18 hours straight.
"Anything you would like to add before we go into speak with this prisoner?" Iruka inquired. And yes, it was we. Iruka and Kokoro worked as a team. Nothing quite put a prisoner more off-kilter than sending in a child to torture them. It really messed with their psyches. And Iruka was not above messing up with their heads to get what he wanted.
"No, not really," Anko sighed and leaned into Kokoro's fingers. "The prisoner wouldn't give up any information."
Iruka nodded and picked up the file, getting ready to go to the interrogation room. "Go home and get some rest, Anko. You look exhausted."
She waved at her desk, "Stupid paperwork..."
He held out his hand and Kokoro jumped off the desk and waved goodbye at Anko whispering something about talking to the woman about vibrators tomorrow. Iruka made a face but tried to pretend he hadn't heard that. So...wrong.
Iruka wasn't surprised that Kokoro didn't ask to see the file. The demon didn't really care. She wasn't here because she cared about Konoha or something banal like that. She was here for him and Ryuu and to a lesser extent she had come to care for Naruto and Itachi and probably even Jiraiya. That's why she was here and helping.
He stepped into the antechamber before the interrogation room, still looking through the details in the file that he held in his hands. Iruka didn't look up until he heard Kokoro's typical greeting.
"Moshi moshi!" Kokoro said wiggling her fingers.
Ibiki was in the antechamber looking at the prisoner through two-way mirror with a grimace on his face. Kakashi and Tenzō both stood next to the scarred interrogator. Kakashi had turned around when Iruka entered and appeared surprised to see him. No doubt he was surprised, Iruka thought to himself. The man had been away all month on some mission. Probably to catch the prisoner that was in the cell. He most likely did not know Iruka and Kokoro now worked in T & I. Tenzō simply looked bored.
"Mitarashi couldn't get anything out of him," Ibiki growled, pointing at the prisoner through the mirror.
Iruka nodded and flipped through the paperwork in the file. "Yeah, that's what I read."
"I don't need to tell you how important this is, Umino," Ibiki gave him a piercing stare. "We have reports this shinobi is working for criminal organization known as the Akatsuki."
He nodded to Ibiki, "Yes, he is."
Ibiki Morino made an unhappy noise. "Care to enlighten me?"
"Wait..." Kakashi interrupted. "So Iruka works here in T & I now?"
Iruka turned to face Kakashi. "Yes, me and Kokoro both work here as agents. You got a problem with that Hatake-san?"
"Maa..." Kakashi shrugged and then looked away, his voice trailing off, not finishing his thought.
Ibiki watched the two of them interact with unmitigated curiosity.
Iruka cleared his throat after a minute and flipped a few pages in the unfortunately thin file and looked back at this boss.
"Ibiki, I unfortunately do not know much that I can tell you about that shinobi other than what you already know out of the bingo book. I never dealt with before. I suppose I know a little bit of things here or there that I heard," Iruka gestured with one hand.
His boss nodded. "Well, have fun."
Kokoro and he walked into the interrogation room and he spied the prisoner that was tied to a chair. He was bloody but not overly so. Anko had gone light on the blond man; there were only a few light wounds on him. Although he might have wounds beneath the skin that he couldn't see.
Iruka activated his sharingan eyes and peered at the man, not even saying anything. He just wanted to catalogue his injuries for the report. But the minute he activated his sharingan eyes, the shinobi turned and glared at him curiously. Well, the man didn't have any additional broken bones, or injuries that he could see. Some minor bruising but that was it. He made a note of it in the file with a small scratch of his pen.
"So, Deidara, would you like to tell me about your art?" Iruka asked casually as he leaned against the wall.
Deidara turned his face away, opened his mouth to speak, and then seemed to think better of it.
Kokoro walked up to the man and cocked her head to one side.
Drawing out a confession from someone was like doing a beautiful dance with their mind. A beautiful choreographed dance that was never the same. A beautiful dance with a kunai.
Iruka wished that it bothered him he was good at his job; that he took satisfaction in it. He desperately wished he missed teaching more, although not for the reason most people assumed. He felt like there was some vital part of his heart missing, some fundamental part of the very fabric and core that he was...sometimes he started at his reflection, wondering who he really was anymore.
He set the file and pen down and walked over to Deidara, feeling the wind pick up around him in the small room with each step he took towards the man. Not a single detail escaped him. He had an excellent memory on his own, but the storage banks within his mind increased tenfold when he activated the sharingan. It turns out the sharingan was an excellent tool for Torture and Investigation work. He could count the eyelashes of anyone he worked over, even when discussing with them the most trivial of matters; they took in everything. In just a flash of a moment, his eyes were more than a camera. A recorder not just of images; but of sound, scent, temperature, texture and taste.
Kokoro as created a whirlwind in the room, it was almost hard to breathe, to hear. Thankfully they had used this interrogation technique previously had had begun using microphones on Iruka's flak jacket in order to pick up the conversation; being piped directly into the antechamber to be reordered for filing purposes. Ibiki was a beast when it came to record-keeping.
"He told me about you-" Deidara said finally.
"Who?" Iruka pressed.
"You're Harbinger, yeah," Deidara gasped. "Why are you working for Konoha?"
Iruka laughed. "I'm afraid you have the wrong idea of how interrogation works, Deidara."
"Uhn...you did ask me who told me about you, yeah," the blond shinobi shifted in the chair slightly grimacing in pain.
"So I did," Iruka scratched the scar on his nose, "And who told you about me?"
The blond shinobi turned his face away, suddenly deciding to be quiet.
Iruka took out a shuriken, twirled it on his knuckle for a moment, then leaned forward and was straddling the prisoner. He grabbed a hold of the prisoner's blond hair and pulled his neck back and ran the sharp end of the shuriken along the Deidara's throat where he could feel the pulse beating rapidly with his eyes. He cut off a large hunk of the man's hair and watched it blow away in the gust of wind, swirling around them. Deidara shivered against him, his expression a cross between terror and panic.
"We're going to play a little game, Deidara..." Iruka smiled as he left the statement hanging. The one thing about intimidation is that people can always infer worse things with their imagination than he could actually do. That's the beautiful, amazing thing about the imagination. It did most of Iruka's job for him.
Kokoro walked closer, her violet eyes burning bright. She giggled and held her hand up and covered her mouth. The prisoner looked at her in startled surprise.
"I'm going to ask you questions, and every time you don't answer me I'm going to cut pieces of your hair off," Iruka twirled the shuriken on his knuckle again. "It's very simple, even for a man who flunked out of Iwagakure's Explosion Corps."
Deidara's eyes blazed angrily and he wrestled with the chakra bindings in the chair. "I didn't flunk out, yeah."
"Oh?" Iruka arched an eyebrow.
"Uhn, who told you that lie?" Deidara yelled.
Iruka ignored the question. "You were found in suspicious circumstances, believed to be infiltrating the Kazekage of Sunagakure. What was your intent?"
Deidara sighed and closed his mouth.
"I like games, ne?" Iruka said with a smile as he advanced on the blond with the shuriken. He activated his sharingan, and just tossed it at the shinobi. Deidara struggled for breath, as they were still in the midst of the gale that Kokoro was creating, Iruka aimed with precision and sliced a chunk of hair off the top of his head. The shuriken embedded itself in the wall behind the prisoner.
"Who told you about me?" Iruka asked.
"Pein did," Deidara said looking at Iruka intently.
"Art is bang, is it not?" Iruka said with a smile.
"Uhn, yeah," Deidara agreed but glared up at Iruka.
"What else did Pein say?" He asked pulling another shuriken out.
"He told me to think of my destiny, yeah," Deidara looked away. "He's always talking about it. And when he told me about you he told me not to kill you if I ran into you. Told me the quote specifically, 'A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate', yeah."
Iruka paused and let the wind die down in the room. "What were you doing in Suna, Deidara? Does it have anything to do with the upcoming Chuunin exam's being held in Konohagakure?"
The blond shinobi grunted, his body sloping forward.
"Not really the answer I was looking for, Deidara..." Iruka said as he shot off another shuriken at the prisoner with meticulous accuracy. A large hunk of blond hair fell to the ground.
"Yeah," the prisoner said after a few moments. "I was to take the Kazekage's place during the Chuunin exam's."
Iruka nodded. Orochimaru had filled that in the past, but he was dead now. It made sense that Madara would have someone else fill in that role this time. He hadn't really expected it to be Deidara the young man had to be around eighteen years old; he seemed so young and jaded already. With this Akatsuki member caught, he wondered who was going to do it now? Would it be Kakazu? Or Pein? Konan? Sasori? Or some ninja that he hadn't accounted for, which was always a dangerous proposition.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Iruka left the interrogation room later with Kokoro at his heels after all of the necessary questions had been answered. Deidara had a new haircut thanks to him and his shuriken, although he did not believe the blond man would thank him for it. The cut was lopsided and definitely slightly had a few more cuts in the back than in the front. But, at least he hadn't cut his face, right? Iruka chuckled to himself as he scribbled a few notes, not realizing he had viewers. He blinked and looked up, not realizing both Ibiki and Kakashi were still outside in the antechamber, now staring at him.
"Interesting interrogation, Iruka," Ibiki said reaching his hand out for the file.
"I got all your answers, Ibiki," He said defensively, feeling his lower lip jutting out slightly and a flush rising over his cheeks.
His boss didn't say anything more just started going over the notes. After a few minutes he closed the file and looked at Iruka.
"So you talked to Pein at some point?" Ibiki said casually.
Iruka exhaled noisily. "Yes, I did...foolish attempt to..." He looked away and clenched his hands. "Change something."
Ibiki quirked an inquisitive eyebrow.
He ran a hand through his hair and tried to ignore the fact that Kakashi was standing there listening to their conversation. It just made an awkward conversation...even more so. "Pein was once a student of Jiraiya –when he was known as Nagato. Their student – teacher relationship did not end well in the past. And it was Pein that kills Jiraiya," Iruka looked away from Ibiki's shocked face. "So I made a point as Harbinger to make a few significant comments, nothing more."
"It seems your remarks were effective," Kakashi pointed out.
Iruka sent a glance over at him but nodded slowly. He was glad that Pein was thinking about what he had said. He really didn't want Naruto and Konoha to have to morn the loss of Jiraiya a second time around.
"And this plot for the Chuunin exam's," Ibiki mentioned. "This is what you said happened last time?"
He nodded. "Different players of course. It was Orochimaru last time not Deidara."
"Did he mention anyone else?" Ibiki inquired.
"Not yet," Iruka shrugged but glanced up at the clock. "It's lunchtime. I'll ask him after lunch, Ibiki."
He grabbed Kokoro's hand and they left the antechamber and walked down the corridor to their desk. Typically they ate lunch at their desk but the combination of this morning investigation and running into a certain silver-haired, lazy perverse shinobi had unsettled him. Iruka picked up his bento box and tapped the top of it in an anxious staccato.
Anko had laid her head on her desk and was now dozing; a soft snore could be heard from her general direction. Kokoro smiled faintly as she looked on.
"Iruka, why don't you go have lunch with Itachi?" Kokoro suggested as she sat in Iruka's chair and began twirling around in it. "I'll stay here and do the paperwork," the demon began making a paper airline out of a partially completed I-97 form.
He started to hesitate when he caught site of Ibiki and Kakashi walking down the end of the corridor. He did not want to be in the room when they came past. Iruka nodded to Kokoro, picked up his bento and quickly passed through the seals to transport himself away.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Konoha's Toshokan Archives were always quiet. The serenity was one thing he appreciated about his job. After all the death he had seen – from being a shinobi at such a young age – this job was a dream to him. Itachi sat in his office and reviewed the latest request for a series of books to be added to the library. He had read most of the books, and it was a good appeal. He was trying to decide if it was in the best interest for Konoha when he heard soft voices outside his door. His secretary, Usagi, was speaking with someone quietly. He barely had the thought register when woman was entering and profusely apologizing.
"Uchiha-san," Usagi nearly tripped over herself bowing. "I couldn't-stop-this jonin-!" Her words came out in a fast rush. She always spoke softly but so fast. As if she was afraid Itachi was going to cut her off or yell at her. Maybe he looked slightly harsh or annoyed even though he tried to offer occasion words of encouragement to the woman.
Iruka followed in behind her, his face flushed red.
"Hn," Itachi said as he set the papers that were in his hands aside. He smiled slightly and reached up to pat his hair.
"That will be all, Usagi," Itachi waved his hand at his secretary.
"But Uchiha-san," the secretary pushed her glasses up the bridge of her flushed and sweaty features. "We-have-to go-over-the Academy book-lists. And jonin just can't-can't walk in here and expect the head of the Toshokan Archives to speak with them!" She finished in a long run-on sentence, stuttering slightly and rushing all of her words together.
Iruka was carrying his lunch bento under one arm and he reached up to scratch the scar on his nose anxiously.
"Itachi...if this is a bad time, I can go?" Iruka asked.
Usagi looked between and Iruka and Itachi in confusion. She glanced again at Iruka, her curious look lingering longer at the peeking bits of tattoos that were visible along the neckline of shirt. The matronly, sweaty secretary frowned in disapproval.
He stood up and shook his head. "Usagi, please leave us."
The woman clenched her hands behind her back and bowed a few times. "Of-of course, Uchiha-san," she answered in a hurry, casting one more censorious look at Iruka and then walked out of Itachi's office and shut the door with a soft click.
After she was gone, Iruka dropped his bento on Itachi's desk and chuckled.
"That one's not dealing with a full deck, 'Tachi," Iruka said.
"Hn," Itachi smirked but silently agreed, pulling Iruka into his arms. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"
Iruka answered, his voice muffled because his lips were buried in his hair. "Was in middle of T & I work this afternoon...needed break...wanted to see you."
He grasped the man tighter in his arms but didn't respond.
"Did you eat your lunch yet?" Iruka inquired.
"No, I haven't had a chance," he pulled away slightly and picked up his own bento from the edge of his desk. "There is a topiary garden behind the Archives that I have seen through the window. Let us eat outside; it is a nice day."
Iruka nodded with a happy smile as Itachi placed a guiding hand on his back and led him out the door and past the open-mouthed and staring Usagi. They walked between tall narrow stacks of book shelves. The smell of old parchment and ink was comforting to him. He directed them between rows of tables and then out a glass door and they were sudden out into the sunshine and in a verdant topiary garden. Small gray pebbles crunched under their feet.
"I had no idea this was back here," Iruka said with a small laugh while he looked from side to side.
"I don't think most people realize it," He shrugged. "It was built mostly to look good through the window and as a project for the prisoners in the psyche ward."
Iruka looked startled and stopped walking. "What?"
"Hn," Itachi sat on a bench and opened his bento.
"You mean this topiary is just a project for prisoners to do?" Iruka waved his arms around and his face flushed.
He arched an eyebrow and started eating. "Does it effect your enjoyment of the garden?"
The other man sighed and sat down with a grumpy face next to him on the bench. "Well, truthfully?"
"No, I want you to lie to me, Iruka," Itachi said sarcastically.
Iruka looked at him for a moment then tipped back his head and started laughing.
All things, great or small, have a beginning. Some things start out small and grow, gradually, so slowly that no one even notices the change until everything is upside-down. Change; be it good or bad is inevitable.
"'Tachi, has anyone ever told you that you're funny?" Iruka said once he was done laughing.
"Only you," Itachi said. "And even then I suspect you're being facetious."
"Ne, I'm not," Iruka cracked open his lunch and began eating with gusto.
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, every few minutes Iruka commenting on something or Itachi talking about his day. One of them would share some of their food out of their bento's to the other without asking, knowing what the others' food preferences were. When they finished lunch, Iruka kissed Itachi on the cheek and transported himself back to the Torture & Interrogations department, thankful for the small respite from his day.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Hidan was in the living room playing video games with Naruto and Sasuke when he got home that night. He was loosing. He cursed loudly and tossed down the controller, then pointed at Sasuke.
"Fuck it. You're using your goddamn eye mojo," Hidan accused.
Sasuke smirked. "Not necessary. You're easily defeated. I could do it with my eyes closed."
"Motherfucker!"
Naruto laughed.
Iruka scratched his scar on the bridge of his nose as he surveyed the scene. He did not remember inviting Hidan over? He hadn't even seen or heard from the Jashinist since Orochimaru's death a few months past.
"What up, Harbie?" Hidan waved at him as if this was a perfectly normal occurrence. As if he normally sat in his living room playing games with his brother.
"Itachi is in the kitchen," Sasuke said.
Iruka nodded slowly.
"My turn," Naruto picked up the discarded controller. "Now you're going to see Sasuke get dominated!"
There was an explosion on the TV screen as Iruka walked away.
"How the fuck did you die already?" Hidan asked incredulously. "I didn't know that was possible."
"Sasuke is using his sharingan." Naruto objected loudly.
"You have the brain the size of a goldfish, Dobe."
"Teme!"
Iruka entered the kitchen, muffling the noise from the living room. Itachi was sipping tea and reading the paper at the dining room table. The tanned man smiled at the pleasant domestication of it.
"Why is Hidan playing video games in the living room?" Iruka gestured back towards the living room as he set down his empty bento on top of Itachi's by the sink. He walked over and kissed the other man on top of his dark head.
The Uchiha shrugged. "He said he wanted to discus something with you and I wasn't going to entertain him."
Iruka chuckled and started pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator for dinner. Saury, lemon, daikon, onions, tomato, lettuce, soy sauce and so on.
"Where's Kokoro?" Itachi asked.
"She went out for drinks with Anko and Shizune," he began preparing the Saury by slicing shallow cuts on the bias and putting it on the broiler pan along with lemon slices.
"I hope she henged into an older form first," Itachi snorted.
"Well she learned her lesson after the last time."
"Hn," Itachi grunted, obviously reading some engrossing article in the paper. The newspaper crinkled in his hands.
"Are Ryuu and Jiraiya still away on their mission?" Iruka asked while he began dicing an onion.
Itachi glanced up briefly. "I believe so."
He nodded and began peeling the daikon.
"I informed Usagi to allow you admittance to my office whenever you wish," Itachi declared.
Iruka looked up in surprise, accidently peeling part of his finger with the surprisingly sharp vegetable peeler. Blood welled up along his index finger in a long, jagged red line. The other man was there beside him, taking his wounded finger in his mouth and sucking on it gently. He felt lust tug on him instantly, heat flaring up in his features.
"Fuck, that's just not hygienic," Hidan complained from the doorway.
He slipped his finger out of the warm cavern of his partner's mouth and Itachi turned his head to glare at the arrival. If possible, Iruka's already flushed face; flamed an even brighter red. Kami, why did he, after all he had seen and done; why did he still blush like some sort of...schoolboy?
"Something big is gonna go down," Hidan said as he turned around a chair and straddled in it backwards.
"Oh?" Iruka quirked an eyebrow.
Itachi folded his arms over his chest, continuing to glare.
"Yeah, at least that's what my contacts have been saying," the Jashinist shrugged, his leather jacket crinkling with the gesture.
"Here in Konoha?" Iruka probed further.
"Yes, that's why I'm here," Hidan inclined his head.
"Do you know any details?"
"No, sorry. Just that something is coming," the man shrugged. "No one seems to know anything definite. Just lots of different rumors."
"Occam's razor," Itachi stated.
"What the fuck?" Hidan looked confused.
Itachi rubbed his temples. "Occam's razor is the concept," he explained, "that the simplest explanation is most often the most correct."
Iruka and Itachi shard a look but didn't say anything. None of them really wanted to put into words what that might imply. Just saying it allowed seemed to make it a reality. It seemed too soon. They weren't ready yet. They still had more training to do. How was it possible? Had Iruka run out of time already? It seemed like time was the one thing that he had an abundance of, and here it was – he was one the cusp of running out of it. He could laugh at the irony.
Iruka nodded and went back to grating the now-peeled daikon. Itachi moved and sat back at the head of the table, resuming his daily consumption of the newspaper.
"What's for dinner?" Hidan asked suddenly.
"Who says you were invited?" Itachi said coolly.
Hidan made a face. "Don't be an asshole, Itachi."
The Uchiha narrowed his gaze. "Don't call me Itachi. My friends call me Itachi."
"And I'm not your friend?" Hidan held his arms up.
"No," Itachi looked away.
The Jashinist's pout turned into a genuine smile. "I have to appreciate a motherfucker who is as in touch with your emotions as you are."
"Both of you – behave." Iruka laughed. "And we're having sanma no shioyaki and ume ochazuke." He pointed a finger at the new-comer. "Which will be ready soon. And if you want some, you're going to have help. Do you know how to make a salad?"
Hidan pounded his chest, "I'm a carnivore, baby!"
Itachi snorted.
"Yeah, okay. Just tear the lettuce," Iruka pushed a head of romaine lettuce and a large salad bowl into the Immortal's arms as he stood to catch the ingredients. He walked over to the side of the kitchen where a cutting board was set up and after a few moments Hidan began savagely tearing the lettuce into pieces with gleeful intensity. Iruka opened his mouth to correct him then just shook his head and handed him a tomato.
"Cut that into chunks for the salad when you're done with the lettuce," Iruka ordered him.
Hidan took the tomato. "So like...whacha doing now?" he inquired. "Like killin' and shit?"
Iruka ignored Itachi's grunted 'hn' behind him. "I am a jonin for Konoha," he stated.
"So killin' and shit," Hidan laughed as he sliced the tomato messily with a very large knife.
"Well..." Iruka pulled the fish out of the oven, evading the answer by announcing dinner was ready.
Soon they were all seated in the formal dining room.
"Fish for dinner again?" Naruto complained, poking a chopstick at his dinner.
Sasuke snickered. "Your startling lack of maturity constantly amazes me."
"Teme!"
"Dobe-"
"Not at the dinner table, you two!" Iruka said heatedly.
"I think we have a rule about that..." Itachi frowned as he bit into dinner.
Sasuke picked up the salad bowl. It held tiniest shreds of lettuce and pulpy bits of red tomato. "What happened to the salad?"
Hidan looked up, a piece of Saury in his mouth. "What the fuck? I never claimed I could goddamn chef."
x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x
He woke to the muffled sound of battle. Iruka opened his eyes and sat up in bed, the sheets falling to his lap. Itachi was at the window, looking out.
"It's begun," he said cryptically.
Iruka stood and walked over to his lover, and tried to pull him into an embrace by the man flinched and wouldn't meet his gaze.
"'Tachi, what's the matter?" Iruka said anxiously, his voice still hazy from sleep. He blinked as he too took in the scene out the window. Konoha overrun with enemies.
"Umino," a mocking voice said from behind him, "Is this how you're greeting visitors now?" Madara said slouched against the doorway.
...
A/N: Please Review ^_^
Written for my stalker, my madness, and for all the banana pajama crew, because you're awesome. You know who you are. Also for spaghetti millionaires everywhere. Take me away with your magical eye-!