I am happy you tried the guessing, it's first time for me trying to ask the readers something concerning the story, so I am really happy it actually earned me an answer. :) Thank you.
Anyway. Don't worry, it's not Itachi-kun. I think at the time he is like nine years old and he is more concerned about his studies and family, than about Konoha genin. It's not either Kakashi - the idea didn't even pop in my head, though it would have been really interesting.
This chapter is more serious, I wasn't trying to write it like that or anything, it just happened.. This story is already messing with my head, taking the direactions it wants, and not the ones I would like for it to take. Does it make sense?
Anyway, enjoy.
4
Iruka woke up to silence, which scared him. Most of the time he was waking to his alarm-clock going all crazy, or to his own screaming, so the absence of anything loud and irritating was confusing.
He took a deep breath to calm himself and looked around to see if there was anything suspicious, but didn't find anything. His alarm-clock had '5:57' on it, so Iruka told himself he can as well get up.
"Honestly, waking up three minutes before my alarm-clock is weird." he murmured to himself, his voice strangely hollow in the large silence of his family house.
He would do it often, talk to himself, because the silence in the house, which was always so loud and bright and happy when his mother had been there, was slowly getting on his nerves.
He stood up walking in his sweat pants towards bathroom, taking a towel on his way.
"Good morning, Kaa-chan, Tou-san." he mumbled while passing his parent's bedroom.
He lazily brushed his teeth and hair and pulled it up in a ponytail. He checked in a mirror his eyes, just to see that the circles had only grown larger after the fourteen hours of sleep, as he had suspected.
"Damn. Ibi-sama won't be happy.." he mumbled again and took a look around to see if he can find something to mask them. Deciding he can as well get a help from his mum he exited the bathroom dumping the wet towel over the edge of bathtub to let it dry.
He knocked on the door to his parent's bedroom.
"Kaa-chan, Tou-san, I am coming in." he said softly and entered the large room.
The room was sunny, even so early in the morning. It's windows were towards south, so even the earliest and latest sun rays could enter. Iruka would always spend a lot of time there, with his mother, just sitting there on the floor and bathing in the sun. They would talk and laugh together, while Iruka's father would sit close to them, somewhere the sun wasn't so bright, and watch them with content smile, or try to read a book.
The books were still there. Some of them on shells and one laying on the floor, open, because his father had been reading at the time Hokage had called emergency. All of them were covered in dust, because Iruka didn't have it in himself to change it there, or actually anywhere else in the house, but his bedroom. Dust was everywhere in the house, he had cleaned just bathroom and kitchen, and it always made him sneeze.
He looked down on the floor, where there were three paths of footsteps, and started walking precisely in one of his old ones.
"I will just borrow something, Kaa-chan. Sorry if I woke you up." he apologized softly taking few steps towards his mother's bed, where was her little table with mirror and few cosmetic things she had used sometimes.
"You can still sleep, Kaa-chan. It's too early." He picked up small box with light dust – powder. He hoped the color will match his skin. His mother was paler then him, but not too much.
"Tou-san hasn't come yet, I guess he has a lot of work to do these days." Iruka continued with his ramblings in a deserted bedroom while pushing two fingers inside of the powder looking curiously on them.
"I will just make something to breakfast and leave it on the table, 'k?" he said with a sad smile touching the darkened skin under his eyes, applying the powder over it.
"So, I will just go, now. Bye, Kaa-chan. I will be back in the afternoon, maybe later, we have some plans with Haya-kun." he lied softly and turned to return back to the doorway.
In the middle of his track he froze and looked back on the bed with alarmed expression.
"I-I-I would .. kiss you, Kaa-chan.." he whispered and his voice broke. "But I wasn't feeling well in the morning." he lied. "And I didn't want you to catch it, too.." He blinked pushing back the tears that threatened to fall and ran from the room, carefully not to make any more footsteps on the dust-covered floor, and slammed the door shut after himself.
Hayate ran out of his front door waving back on his father and took a direction towards training field number 9 where their team meetings took place.
He was late.
Again.
He pushed chakra to his feet to speed up, because he had only few minutes before he would have to be there. It didn't take long for him to reach the forest and he saw a jogging figure of his friend – who else would be there at that time, after all – so he smirked and disappeared into the dark forest, finding his path trough.
Iruka looked around to look if he would be able to see someone, because the feeling of someone watching him was back, and stronger. He didn't even bother to look for the chakra signature anymore, he didn't know it.
And as suddenly as the feeling of being watched appeared, Iruka caught a silent echo of footsteps against shallow forest ground. It was so silent he at first thought he was imagining things, but then when he concentrated on that direction, he caught oh so silent breathing and light thumps of movement.
He briskly took out of his pouch three shuriken and without second thought threw them towards the person following him, noting with satisfaction the slight change in steps and breathing.
He heard his shuriken make a contact with an unfortunate tree and stump and nodded to himself. The person dodged. Good.
Iruka made a seal with his hand letting the bomb on the second shuriken detonate grinning wildly when he saw the cloud of smoke and dust and heard frantic footsteps from the place.
He frowned when he realized that the person tailing him was now taking direction straight towards him. Does he want to pick up fight, or something? Or is he disoriented by the cloud?
The teen quickly ducked low at the edge of forest hiding himself in a shadow trying to remember what his friend Hayate told him about sneaking and hiding. Something about calming his breath, which was difficult since Iruka was breathing fast from the excitement, about hiding in the shadow, which was even harder since it was bright day and he didn't really want to go deeper into the forest, and trying to think like the enemy.
Like hell I am going to think as a creepy stalker.. he thought to himself and instead concentrated on the sounds from where his enemy was coming. He heard the footsteps getting closer and closer, accompanied by evened breathing and silent hissing.
Idiot. Idiot. Idiot! Idiot! IDIOT! Hayate was screaming inside his head, not daring to make any sound in case Iruka would be listening. He really didn't want any other shuriken aiming on his head, thank you very much.
What was the idiot thinking anyway? Throwing shuriken around like this. If Hayate wasn't so fast, he would have gotten hit with it, and Kami knows what poisons they were covered in!
He could see the light of a path already, and sighed in relief. Oh sweet safety. He took a look around, but didn't see his hot-headed friend anywhere.
"Iruka.." he said silently, knowing that if his friend was listening he would hear him.
He searched for a spiritual pressure and felt it from behind him. Hayate turned around quickly trying to find his friend. He thought he caught a blur of motion about sixty meters from himself, but then the forest went back still.
When did he get behind me? The dark-haired teen wondered taking few steps backwards. There had been something weird about the aura which had resonated from the blur back there.
Hayate frowned. I shouldn't be scared of my own teammate.. he thought to himself, but there were shivers running down his spine. The aura was scary. And those shuriken were aimed to stop and kill.
"Iruka..?" he said again questioningly and little bit louder.
"H-Hayate?" there was soft, but loud voice from the direction of the pathway and the teen turned around confused. There was a person standing, looking alert, but it was definitely his teammate.
"Yea. Wait there, I am coming." he said harshly before sparing another look back to the forest, where he had seen something moving. He didn't see anything.
He sighed in relief. It was some animal, and he had mistook it for a person, because he was still slightly dazed by the smoke he had breathed in.
Iruka stood there trying to even his panicked breathing. It was Hayate. He had almost killed his best friend. He didn't, fortunately, but it was a close call.
He clenched and unclenched his fists painfully digging his nails into the soft flesh of palms while watching his friend gracefully jog through the rest of the forest towards him. Iruka was sweating and looking at him with wide, panicked eyes. He had almost killed him.
"You look like shit." was Hayate's greeting from where he stood in front of his best friend. "And is that make up?" he asked with disgust pointing towards Iruka's eyes. Iruka didn't even snatch his hand away, like he normally would.
The older teen titled his head to look at his teammate more carefully. "Are you alright?"
Iruka let out small sobbing noise and took a step forward embracing his little friend tightly. "I almost killed you.." he whispered.
"But you didn't. It's alright." Hayate whispered back, being already used to his friend sometimes needing help with calming down. "Why were you throwing it so seriously, anyway?" he asked frowning.
"I thought you were someone else.." Iruka answered finally letting him free. Hayate needed to breath.
"Who else?" he asked warily demanding and answer. His friend just shook his head:
"I will tell you later, we are late." he laughed sheepishly, but there wasn't his hearth in it.
Ibiki was pissed. It was now official. His brats, who were now standing in front of him with a nervous expressions, were late. Again. Second day in a row.
"So.." he started giving them his scariest look. They didn't look affected. "Any good reason you are late again, or should I directly ask you your last wish?" he growled crossing his arms.
"Well.." Iruka started scratching his head and trying to make an eye contact with his teammate. Ibiki raised and eyebrow.
"Ah.. I wanted to surprise him so I took a path trough the forest, but I got lost.." Hayate lied as best as he could, trying his best to look embarrassed.
"I don't believe you." Ibiki said shaking his head. Was the brat serious? He knew that Hayate had a bad sense of orientation, but to get lost on the way inside of Konoha?
"I am sorry, Ibiki-sama." Hayate said in the most pitiful tone he could muster looking down on his shoes. Ibiki sighed.
"Be more careful next time. And don't be late tomorrow." he warned them, and although they didn't like the idea of lying to their sensei, they weren't that keen of the idea of painful death, either.
"And don't call me 'sama'!" Ibiki suddenly remembered and shouted on them angrily. The two teens exchanged amused look and earned themselves a smack over their heads. "Why can't you just call me 'sensei' like every sane student?" he said angrily.
"Because we aren't sane?" Iruka tried innocently and got himself another hit.
"Because we aren't students?" was Hayates guess which got him the same reply as Iruka's.
"Because you like us?" Iruka got a hit and growl.
"Because we like you?" Hayate asked sweetly and dodged the hit aiming on his head. His head already hurt, damn it!
"Just shut up and go train or something." Ibiki said in a low voice waving them of. "Take a round around the field and then spar." he ordered and went to sat down at a tree. He took out from his cloak some papers he needed to work at and watched his two brats running side-by-side their lap.
He had to say, there were good. They worked well as a team, maybe because there were just the two of them, after that incident.
And while he always tried to be angry on them and give them his scary look, he knew they had grew on him.
They were his genin, after all.
Anyone wants to try and guess the stalker's identity once again? Still a little time to get it right. :)
Oh, I will give you a hint: they are a genin now, probably little older than Iruka (well, I don't think that will actually help since the ranks here are from my head) and in the anime they are a jounin from the very beginning. However, they aren't in the anime very often, which is probably a shame, altough they are crazy, I kinda like them. :)
Thank you for reading, it makes me happy that someone likes something i thought up :)