Thank you for the R sorry for the trauma...
Chapter Eight
"I didn't expect to see you here," Tsunade said, fixing Ibiki with a cold, sideways look. She hung the clipboard on the bedrail much harder than necessary.
"I wanted to look in on him."
"Well, do you like what you see? Do you?"
Ibiki shook his head , moving to the bedside to get a closer look. "You'll be able to fix that, though. Over time."
"No, Ibiki, I won't. There was a very good jutsu involved. No skin graft will take. I've been trying to find some way to make it work, but I doubt he'll ever have a face again in the normal sense. So far it's all that I can do to effect enough healing to give him some sort of barrier against infection, and keep the surface weeping to a minimum. And that's if I'm lucky."
"Damn," Ibiki grunted, a wince crossing his face.
"Your report doesn't explain it sufficiently. Why did you lag so far behind? Why didn't you intercept them the minute you had the location of his hideout?"
"Kakashi submitted that report and he was not privy to all of the details. You'll have mine to amend it with this afternoon. We were taking precautions, for one thing. It wouldn't have done him any good if we'd gone thundering in their and set off traps and buried them alive. It's always a strong consideration when you're looking at anything underground. "
Tsunade's glare softened, but Ibiki knew he didn't deserve to be taken out of the hot seat so easily, so he continued.
"But there was an error factor there as well. I did delay our intervention, and by the time we detected the chakra of the damaging jutsu it was too late. I was doing Umino a favor," the lumbering shinobi said quietly. "I wanted to let him get free of the subliminal control by himself. He was doing it, I could sense that he was fighting hard. He was struggling against it and starting to succeed. It would have been good for him to break free on his own instead of being rescued like some victim. Empowering."
Tsunade's head was shaking back and forth. "You should have stayed close and pulled him out immediately. Jeninki's style of control is insidious…was insidious. They were together over a period of days, it would have built up and started taking root, and he probably thought he was going insane. I made my own mistakes. I should have supervised this more closely. He should have been warned, Ibiki."
"He was more effective this way. I don't think he could have pulled it off if he knew ahead of time. We might not have been able to discern just how completely the Uzingan worked in spite of the suppression field. His resistance training against being possessed would be too strong for him disengage, at least not completely enough to fool someone like Hidata."
"Perhaps. It's pointless to argue now. We brought a lot of missing shinobi remains home to rest. We know where our two nin went and, sadly, what became of them. Everyone that took part in the sortie came home alive except the enemy. Only one casualty, and not fatal. By all definitions, I have to admit that the mission was successful. So your reputation remains untarnished, Morino."
"I should go." Ibiki allowed his hand to rest on Iruka's bare shoulder for a fleeting moment. It felt soft and alive, a feeling so foreign that it caused the powerful hand to draw away immediately. Other than a few bruises and severe shock, the physical damage was confined to one area. Even against his most despised foe, Ibiki had never conceived of a torture like this one. He duly noted it, but in his heart he knew that he would find it nearly impossible to use.
"I'm not sure what he'll remember when he wakes up. Until I can make him understand the influence he was under, and why we used him as we did, I think it's best you stay away."
"As you wish. I was hoping to be of some assistance with his recovery. If my services will be of value at some point I would be honored to help. But, Lady, a word of warning - there's someone else I think you should restrict from visitation."
"You mean Kakashi? I saw the video, Ibiki - and by the way, you're lucky that I don't throw your ass in your own brig for not putting some kind of warning on the damned thing before I watched it. It was not a comfortable thing to witness. But Kakashi didn't hurt him, and he didn't put up a fuss…and technically he did ask for it. A blind man could tell he didn't mean it and didn't want it. But Kakashi didn't break any laws, so I'm not indicting him. It's poor sportsmanship, but it's not illegal to have sex with someone in confinement in chakra cuffs. I hope you weren't wanting it back, because I already destroyed it."
"You'd trust him in here while he's unconscious?"
"I never said that. He's already banned from visitation. I'm just making sure you don't take any unofficial action against him."
"Fair enough. I rated his performance on the away mission as acceptable already anyway. " He stepped back, still gazing at the unrecognizable man on the bed and effectively concealing the unrelenting waves of regret. "When do you think he'll come around?"
"He's still days away from waking up. His mind is still decompressing from the influence of the Uzingan on top of the trauma, so I'm going to keep him in deep sleep to make it easier on both of us. I haven't given up completely on finding some way to reverse this jutsu. I only hope I can find a way to make some kind of progress before I have to explain all this to him. You're dismissed, Ibiki. "
She waited until the door safely closed to let her shoulders sag and use the heel of her palm to force the excess moisture out of her eyes. Holding Iruka's limp hand in both of hers, she concentrated her healing powers and channeled as much positive, reassuring chakra as she could muster into the silent form. He would need support and he would need extra precautions; and he would need hope…that would be that hardest part to heal, and the most important factor of all.
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Umino Iruka had finally settled into his new routine, but it was about to change drastically again.
The heavier curtains topping privacy shades brought a cave-like feeling to his formerly friendly, almost whimsical apartment décor. Only the blazing knife-edge of light skirting the outlines of those window coverings provided the light for his morning preparations.
In the weeks since he'd been home, recovering physically and presumably mentally from his ill-fated yet successful mission, he'd learned the skills of the blind. Even at night he rarely turned on a light, yet he accomplished every task, with few mishaps. He had no need of illumination at home most of the time.
His pattern was unique. After showering came the careful application of the gel to his face, then the waiting. It would congeal into a flexible coating; it was clear, although that was no favor whatsoever visually. That coating protected him as his skin would have, and it then allowed him to affix the mask.
It was the tried and true porcelain of the ANBU, a material tested and perfected for long-term wearability and relative comfort. No matter how Iruka had tried to modify it, or pad it, or space it away, after a few hours certain places where it touched his face would begin to ooze like open sores, and there was nothing for it but to tolerate it. It was hidden from public view, no one else's problem. As was Iruka himself, now that he was no longer the sexiest chunin in town.
That old, dubious honor was the reason he had been subjected to constant pursuit most of his life and in consequence was the reason for his absence of experience in seeking out company himself. That reason was now gone. No one approached him with any intent of touching, much less molesting him. Few approached him at all.
Even his friends, those he historically considered his friends, had sort of backed away. For whatever reason, they no longer tried to haul him to the bar, or the ramen stand, or the training field.
And he hadn't seen Kakashi once since he was injured. Not in the hospital, not breaking into his apartment like he always did, not on the street…not once.
That was not a coincidence no matter how the chunin had tried to convince himself in the first couple of weeks after his release.
Mask in place, now the light could go on. Just the one in the hallway, a twenty-five watt, and it cast its sallow wash of light into the adjoining rooms. Iruka pushed shut the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and checked the mask in the mirror. He made sure his hair was right. Not that it mattered. It just felt better to have it centered, and to see that it was done up well enough not to fall out. Nothing really could be done for appearance's sake except the mask. Satisfied that his hair should last the day, he opened the cabinet again so that the mirror faced the wall. It was the only mirror left in the house, and it only closed for a moment each day when he checked his mask. He had no desire to see his facial wreckage ever again.
He gathered up his box of teacher's aids and lesson plans, and placed it on the borrowed hand truck. Next came a case of mixed teacher's supplies, a gift set of instructor's kunai, and case of flash cards, exercise books and bulletin board decorations. That was it, the last of it.
Today was his last day at the academy. He'd gone back bravely and tried so hard to make it work. But he was largely mute now, and the kids didn't have anything to relate to when he stood before them at the head of the class. It wasn't fair to try and teach them with expressionless mask and mime the skill they would need to kill, survive and cope in the vicious, dangerous, unforgiving world.
The effort went on too long after Iruka became agonizingly aware that it wasn't going to work. It was merciful, in its cruelty, that the trap lesson backfired with his restricted vision and the mask had come free. The children were terrified. It was late in the day, so not only was the gel barely holding things together, the spots where the mask chafed looked like raw meat. It pretty much signaled the end of the game.
Many of the parents complained vehemently, as their children came home that day with horrified stories instead of corrected papers. Most were reported by their parents as having nightmares. The kids were distraught in the classroom in the following days. Some were sad and teary at his pain, some were repulsed and distracted, and a few were scared and defensive. No one could teach against such odds. With the concurrence of Tsunade, he'd stepped down.
He rolled the boxes into the teacher's lounge and parked the school hand truck there with them. Somebody would take these thing and get some use out of them. He'd been gifted just a few of the items, for the most part he'd purchased it all with his own money; but he saw no earthly use to keep it, and being wasteful just wasn't a part of his make-up.
And having it at home would just be another reminder of what he was missing.
Everyone knew it was his last day. The new teacher had already taken over, leaving him free to clean things out and tie up loose ends. There wasn't anything in his desk he wanted. Nothing in the lounge. No one made an effort to be there, although everyone knew what time he was supposed to drop off this stuff. There wasn't going to be a goodbye party or luncheon. He'd made a convincing argument against it, since eating was done in private.
If anyone had wanted to see him off, two seconds of thought would have told them that they could still step out for a drink. But it was dropped, if anything with relief instead of disappointment. On both sides.
Some things happen and you find out who your friends truly are. Truly, Iruka had one. Now that he was an abomination and could spare few words, the only person who sought him out was Naruto, on his rare visits to the village.
If it wasn't for the promise of partial disability checks he would be facing the prospect of moving into a studio apartment in the genin commons. He couldn't bear to man the mission desk for any longer shifts than he already did. But today he went there early, when the rising hurt from standing in the empty teacher's lounge got to him. He'd left his farewell to the students in cheery, big letters on the chalkboard last night after hours, so that it would be there when class started in the morning. He couldn't see putting any of them, himself included, through some melodramatic goodbye scene. It was over. Bury it.
Walking along to the mission room, down mostly empty halls and out into the street, he saw glimpses of himself in the windows. It looked creepy, the featureless mask without the ANBU armor. There were no animal markings, and the glaze had a blue cast to it, to distinguish him from ANBU on sight. It was, after all, a crime to impersonate an elite.
It was almost funny, when he was young his mother and father coveted the ANBU mask, raised him with the thought that it was the goal…and that was just a step on the way to becoming sannin. They were A+class jounin after all, and it was expected that their son, the next generation of pure shinobi by nature and nurture, would surpass them.
So it was bitterly ironic that he'd earned his porcelain mask as a mere chunin, and it was because he'd had his ass handed to him once and for all.
It was further irony that a man who couldn't seem to hold his tongue properly despite the dictates of rank and respect, now no longer said more than a handful of words a day. A part of it was due to his new disability. His coated, masked face could move very little without starting to agitate the tender surface, and eating and talking were the worst offenders. They were the most damaging moves next to smiling and frowning, useless acts given the mask and more easily left behind now.
It was amazing how few words really needed to be said after a moment's consideration. Sometimes several days passed without a single utterance. People with complicated issues now filtered to any desk but his when turning in mission reports. No longer the great equalizer, dressing down insolent jounin, chunin and genin alike for poor work and late submissions, he became more of an intake clerk, silently stamping, reviewing, and passing less than adequate work to the next desk. The whole mission room had become like a library, silence suddenly the proper atmosphere, with joking and laughter rare indeed.
As the days marched on without regard to the loss of his title as sensei, it clearly wasn't enough. Too many hours woolgathering alone, noticing the turned heads and diverted paths when he came near, and the total absence of visitors or invitations out, crushed him further into solitude. He moved in total darkness in his home now, no longer needing the light even to check his mask. The shattered medicine cabinet mirror had been tossed out some time ago. The new, flesh-colored gel Shizune was developing for him was too horrendous to wear in public and he no longer tried on the new batches she left for him at the mission desk. He stuck with the clear gel and the mask, the silence, the darkness, and the seclusion.
Tsunade had forced him come in for an exam after Shizune complained about his unwillingness to try the latest gel. Iruka nodded and shook his head to her questions, small movements. He finally spoke as she was preparing to end the examination, her spirits depressed as always at the wounded thing he had become.
"I want a mission."
Startled, Tsunade was going to laugh, and caught herself. A mission for a mostly mute, unresponsive, depressed chunin who hadn't been training in…a year, probably.
Maybe. He was still shinobi under it all. So…maybe.
"I know of nothing suitable at the moment. I will keep your request in mind if something appropriate becomes available. I make no promises."
Iruka nodded with a grain of hope, a bare movement to avoid pulling at his face.
xxxxxx
Iruka was folding down an unruly crease on a mission report after stamping it in and giving the shinobi his standard wave denoting the end of their business transaction. He had to cant his head forward a little further than was comfortable to see through the mask to do so, ignoring the next in line with a touch of annoyance at experiencing pain doing something so pedestrian.
"Ahem," a female voice boomed, and a scroll thwacked down hard on the desk. The startling demand for his attention adding a touch of fuel to Iruka's small spark of irritation.
But the seemingly rude, impatient shinobi was not. It was his ebullient Hokage, and the scroll was not for a completed mission. It was a new C-rank. And it was his.
"No? Not interested?" she smiled at his initial startle reaction before he had a chance to regroup, her blue eyes crinkled with mischief. "Having too much fun to get away for a while?"
He was slow to take it, scarcely believing what was being offered. Because it wasn't just a mission scroll. It was the only sign of acceptance he'd received, the only gesture to invite him back into shinobi society that he'd been shown so far. It had taken so many months, and all the while more and more of what he was and what he had been was dying and falling away like the diseased branches of a hopelessly infested oak.
But he was a shinobi in his heart and soul, no matter what anyone else's opinion might have been over the years. When he taught the children, he did not to teach because he could not do…he taught them because he believed in helping them to become what he was at his core. For the good of the village he selflessly passed on the glory and the excitement and suppressed his warrior instincts until he had nearly domesticated himself. Few of those famous, lauded, elite shinobi would have had strong enough egos to weather the agony of self-depreciation his old career path required. He learned to ignore the demands of his embattled pride when it screamed at him to throw off the desk-ninja chains and run wild in the forests; to resist indulging in his animal instincts to drink deep of the blood of their enemies. He had played his unimaginably difficult role so long that he failed to step away from it even after the need for it vanished.
But it was just a role he'd played, a necessity to properly nurture the treasure that was Konoha's young. Inside the will of fire of his ninja instinct burned still, and being tucked away had protected it from harm as his old life shattered and littered his days with the stench of rotting familiarity.
His Hokage's laugh fanned that flame as she took his hand and placed the scroll in it.
"Study this carefully before you set out. I'm not giving you a cream puff here, this has some complex and dangerous features. It ranked as a C but I'll wager it's a B before you're through. Are you sure you only want to go solo? I can justify two men on this."
The silence that had fallen over the dozen or so souls in the mission room was charged with electricity. Everyone witnessing the Hokage's words had strong reactions of shock.
"Solo." Iruka's seldom-used voice was unexpectedly strong and clear.
"Very well. The desk will have to live without you for a week, they might as well get used to it now. Take off and get your things together. Do your best." Tsunade turned and glared at the jounin behind her. "Don't you listen? This line is closed." She waved them over to the next desk and flounced out of the room.
Iruka went to clear the desk quickly, but not quite quickly enough. He wanted to preserve this moment, to go contemplate privately this new development without distraction.
But his excellent hearing picked up the whispered, "She must be so fucking drunk she doesn't know what she's doing." and the snicker of reaction.
He gripped the scroll until his knuckles whitened and transported away, leaving the filing and logging undone on his desk for the jerks to deal with as a small token of his esteem.
If this mission went well he was never going to sit behind that fucking desk again.
He was able to transport all the way home, quite a feat considering the distance. But his skills were not as rusty as one might think. He had been training, as painful and potentially futile as that effort was up until now. He trained in seclusion, a fact he'd revealed to no one. Well, certain people probably knew, those for whom knowing everything was adjunct to their profession. He disliked knowing that Ibiki was one of those people, but there was little to be done about it.
His hands were steady as he slid open the curtains and raised the shade, taking in the long lost sight of cheerful sunshine flooding into the living room. He needed that light to study the scroll.
Because he needed that scroll to find his light.
With that thought he read the first read piece of writing that had fully captured his interest since the last essay he'd corrected months before. It was just a reconnaissance, the primary skill required was stealth. It wouldn't be easy and the location was in Mist territory, so the elements of personal risk were not exaggerated. It wasn't patronizing or contrived. It was a legitimate mission at the upper end of his current skill and ability level. It was evidence of belief in his useful existence.
Deep in his chest a dam was bursting and the flow of time began again for the first time since his possession by the rogue nin.
The days ahead suddenly held interest again, full of unknowns and opportunities. He tapped at his mask and listened to the melodic ring of the porcelain. Jeninki's words of freedom, however insane, had taken root and festered in his trapped soul up until now. Getting out for this mission felt like escape from the slavery and callous treatment that made up the routine of his days.
If this went well, he would use his hold over Tsunade to bid for full-time mission status. He smelled the guilt on her every time she had him remove the mask for his examination. There was no reason not to use that unwanted pity to his advantage if he chose to.
The specks of house-dust dancing in the sunlight brought back a flash of memory, of the dust drifting and sparkling in the shaft of light as his vision adjusted and the village of dead shinobi had come into view. Jeninki, the lunatic, still came to him in his dreams, beautiful and beckoning. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to despise him completely. The majority of the pain from his wounds came from the people of Konoha. Jeninki's caring was grossly misguided, but at least it had been sincere. Iruka privately indulged in a traitorous sense of loneliness over his loss.
He shook himself back into the present. Kami, it felt like a lifetime since last he'd packed for any mission, and it had literally been years since he'd had to pack for anything longer two nights. There were kunai and shuriken to sharpen, senbon to find, he'd need to buy dry rations and a survival kit that didn't have expiration dates from three years ago…his body interrupted his busy thoughts with the news flash that his cheeks hurt. He hadn't had anything worth the pain of smiling for in so long that it felt good in a way, but he stopped it immediately. His face would no doubt give him enough trouble with all the movement necessary in week of travel status.
He almost forgot to draw the shade and close the curtain when he finished reading the scroll. A whole week with no sideways looks or wagging tongues lay before him. He tapped the mask to assure himself it was snug and set out to buy the things he'd need.
How strange life was. After so many years, he was back at the crossroads. The path that he'd chosen and dedicated his life to was closed and now he had been returned to start anew with a second chance at the life he'd foregone. There was no real decision in it. He'd reached the end of the other journey and all that was left of it was the dead end at its terminus.
And the silent avoidance of the hardened shinobi was a blessing in disguise now. The derisive things they would have offered as comment to his reinstatement as full-time ninja would probably hurt, no matter how he tried to shrug them off. He closest jounin companion would fight him fiercely over the decision had they still been in touch. He would have told him it was suicide. He would have followed him and interfered on his behalf with the Hokage and stepped in to try and save him whether he needed it or not.
The way was clear, his conscience was clean, and the time was now. Never had he felt such control over his circumstance. It was appropriate now to allow his ego to swell and his powers to rise to the surface. He had no doubt in his ability to prove himself to Tsunade. Now he would find out what sort of shinobi he was capable of being. His only challenge would be patience if she didn't see things his way.
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Being tenacious was an excellent trait in a Hokage. Anything shelved as unresolved remained in her mind and kept re-emerging until it could be resolved in some way. Some things merely required the passage of time to take care of themselves and drop from her to-do list. But a few things became pet projects, and she invested her spare time, when she had it, to work on them diligently. Eventually it paid off, one way or another. After many months of off-and-on effort, the payoff this time was going to be spectacular.
Tsunade smacked her hand on the desktop, calling Shizune in with a rare sober laugh.
"What is it, Lady?" Shizune asked.
"I have perfected it, finally. This is our new treatment for deep burns and the like, it's brilliant - even if I do say so myself. Send for Iruka, he should be back from his last B-rank by now. Don't tell him, Shizune, but this is it." She held up the test results and waved them to punctuate her words. "In two steps I can give him his face back."
The dark-haired kunoichi beamed and bowed low. "Bless you, I've been so worried about him. Maybe now he can start to become his old self again."
xxxxx
The argument Shizune heard leaking out of the doors was rather one-sided. Tsunade was doing all of the yelling. But it was more than obvious what Iruka's part in the exchange must have been. He must simply have been shaking his head in the negative.
The door flew open and Tsunade had Iruka by the arm, escorting him physically with her to the medical unit. "The first procedure will strengthen what you have already so the mask won't damage you further, and protect you from infection. Now that you practically live in mission status its an absolute necessity to preserve your facial integrity. You won't need the gel. You're getting this whether you want it or not. I don't know if I'll let you opt out of the second procedure either. I think that's just your poor mental health talking!"
Her angry words echoed in the hall as she drug him with her.
Shizune felt worse than before. She never imagined that he would choose not to be set back to rights. Maybe the old Iruka couldn't come back to them, ever. She couldn't wait for her shift to end to go find Genma and share these disturbing thoughts with someone. The front doors fell shut, and the angry voice was cut off, leaving behind a vacuum of silence.
tbc