Tithe: Chapter 2

Five days into his journey and Iruka knew he wasn't lost, but he felt like it. For the past three days he'd been surrounded by trees that blended into a solid wall of unknown forest, and their leafy branches only spanned higher the farther in he went. The trip to Konoha took a well documented week when traveling at a semi-leisurely pace along the forest path so the teacher knew he had at least two or three days where he could stop and camp while working on reaching out to a familiar.

Every night he read a little farther into the old scroll amazed at the detail in the directions, but the actual simplicity of the jutsu itself. The Governor had been correct when he'd claimed that Iruka would easily be able to easily use the scroll. He actually looked forward to reaching a point where he felt competent enough to give it a try.

Tonight we say goodbye to a beloved son of our village. We join to celebrate his promotion to a position unreachable in our small home, but attainable only through our peaceful reliance on the hidden village of Konoha. We honor them by our requested tithe. To lose such a promising young man as Umino Iruka is to lose a part of our own soul. We wish him well on his journey, providence towards his future, and favor in his future actions. Raise your cups to Umino Iruka, now to be known as a teacher of Konoha.

It was two more nights before Iruka reached the end of the instructions. He was pleasantly surprised to find a listing of animals that could be and had been successfully called as familiars. Some of them even seemed to be good recommendations though most didn't seem appropriate for a classroom, such as a hawk or field mice.

Here, near the end of this lovely evening we raise our cups and our hearts once more to our young Iruka. May he find love and laughter in that hidden village away from the sea.

He reached the boundaries of Konoha, easily recognized by a well known and well marked tree. As he stood there in the bright noon light his eyes searched over its heavily carved bark looking for a familiar name. They found the kanji without too much trouble, those few symbols that made up a name he had tried to forget. Iruka reached out his fingertips to trace over the rough edged marks while attempting to remember a time when that name was more than just the name of a traitor, but his old friend's final action had colored all the good thoughts that remained.

With a blink of his brown eyes Iruka tossed the maudlin thoughts from his mind and forced a smile as he searched the entire width of the tree for a free space to carve his own name. It was tradition for those who were sent to Konoha, a last reminder to their home villages that they'd once belonged elsewhere. He was finally forced to use his chakra training to climb the tree for access to a good spot.

High up in the tree was a piece of trunk illuminated by sunlight due to the thinning branches and strangely able to show him a good measure of the country he'd been walking in for the last week. There were trees as far as the eye could see, most making an even canopy of green leaves but an occasional rebel such as the one he was sitting in now stood up taller than the rest. As he focused on carving his own name into that sunlit spot he was unaware of being observed.

A masked figure crouched on a branch many trees over secure that the man couldn't see him. A messenger bird had already been summoned and sent to Konoha informing them of the expected teacher's imminent arrival since the stranger couldn't be anything other than their expected tithe. After watching the pony-tailed figure jump down from the tree the watcher left him to his business with a mental note to make sure the continuous ANBU patrols kept checking on him. Even though they were within Konoha territory there were always dangers, and losing their new teacher before he'd even met his students wouldn't make the Hokage very happy at all.

Evening had fallen while Iruka set up his camp. His dinner was slowly roasting on a stick and the summoning scroll was spread out showing the entire diagram he needed to call a familiar. The unlucky animal he'd caught earlier was devoured as he carefully studied the seal images once more before cleaning up and getting comfortable. This particular summoning would take a tremendous amount of focus on how exactly he laid out his chakra into the appropriate patterns and with what intensity those symbols called the creatures with. While concentrating so minutely on the jutsu he would be open to attack and so prepared with a variety of traps around his campsite, but not as many as he had originally planned.

Even though he was in unfamiliar woods, a sense of comfort had enveloped him as he continued to walk forward accompanied by the occasional chakra presence. He didn't doubt that he was already being watched by Konoha guards, and was actually disappointed they hadn't dropped from their patrols to say hello. It was their presence that kept him from worrying too much about the possible dangers of meditating so deeply for an extended amount of time. Any of the traps he'd set would easily bring him back to consciousness if set off, and any strangers would be found and surrounded by Konoha's ANBU well before they got to him; at least he hoped so.

Iruka chuckled at his thoughts and sat down. A quick arranging of himself and the area had him prepared and ready. He stretched out a thin layer of chakra all around him and began shaping it in to the form of the forest summon seal. Had anyone been watching that could see chakra they would have wondered at the many holes and tears that appeared in the aqua colored shroud causing it to appear ragged until another wave of power fleshed the pattern out into a much wider circle around the mage.

The moon was rising late as a patrol sensed the disturbance. The Konoha shinobi traveled quickly from tree to tree until he found what he'd been told to check up on; the new teacher. The guard took a few loud steps near the campsite to inform the stranger of his presence and had to stand still for a second when he realized he was surrounded by traps, small ones, nonlethal ones, but loud and annoying traps that would announce his presence to anyone nearby and some people far away if they had good hearing. The shinobi grinned and stepped around them all into the firelight to observe the man who would soon be teaching the younger generation. He was quite impressed by what he saw and even more so when he raised the hitai-ate that covered his left eye to observe the chakra that was leaking from the brunette.

With the exposure of his normally hidden eye he could see that the chakra wasn't leaking, but being very delicately placed in a seal of high detail. That fine of a control was rarely seen in a jounin level mage outside of the hospital and here the chuunin they'd requested played with his energies as delictaely as a musician did his instruments. It was an amazing thing to watch, but the shinobi could easily see why the man wasn't a higher level. Though he had enormous control over his personal power, the man had very little of it. Already his personal reserves were running low, but he seemed to be coming to the end of his design so the shinobi jumped into nearby tree to observe unnoticed.

From above, the chakra design resembled a summoning seal, but none the shinobi had seen before. As he watched it continued to thin and spread into a wider formation until the symbols were all separate of each other. With a wave of color that shot out in all directions, the chakra was loosed into the forest and the mage sitting by the fire gave off a loud sigh. The concealed shinobi watched as the man stood and stretched.

Iruka felt like laughing as he worked his tense muscles. The summons had gone perfectly, exactly as the scroll had described it. His familiar should show up by the morning and he was hoping for a hound, but one of the sarcastic forest cats might do as well. He rolled up in his travel blanket and found a comfortable spot up against a tree trunk after securing his small fire. He was sure whatever animal that answered his call would have no problems with waking him up.

As he fell asleep he could feel a nearby chakra presence moving away from him, one of Konoha's guards who must have sensed the summons and stayed to make sure he was alright afterwards. Iruka smiled as he wondered about what the guard might have thought of his odd actions. Hopefully Konoha knowing that he had just now summoned a familiar wouldn't look bad. He could only hope that whatever answered was impressive enough to stem any odd looks he might receive.

Young Iruka, you have quite an adventure in front of you. Make sure you remember us as you become what all mages yearn for, a true shinobi of a hidden village. I've always admired your ability at their jutsus. You've been a credit to this school, and a credit to this village. Now you take your learning and your empathy to students that need you more than our small classrooms do. I wish you luck as you cross from one life to another. May you find only smiles upon your arrival.

To Be Continued...

A/N: so, here's the next. I had some problem blending the idea of chakra and magery and such, but hopefully I muddled through enough to make it easily understandable in later chapters.. for now, just go with the flow :D

Thank you so much for reading!