He should have been upset. He didn't know why, but he felt like he should have been upset.
"Right, so is everyone's quiz turned in? Great. I'm going have Mizuki-sensei go through these and correct them, and that'll give you guys a chance to ask a few follow up questions about the Kyuubi."
"Oi, Iruka-sensei," Mizuki pouted, "You're really gonna make me check all these by myself?"
Iruka rolled his eyes, "Of course not Mizuki-sensei, just get started. I want to get through the Q and A before we do that." There was a pause, "and also there'll be less work for me to do when I'm done. First question!" He clapped his hands, catching the class's attention.
There was that name again. Naruto frowned, and for once… for once he found himself quiet and deep in thought. He didn't think it should be called the Kyuubi. That seemed like a really stupid name for the demon fox.
A hand shot up in class.
"Sakura, go."
His thoughts were instantly stilled. Ahh Sakura, she was so beautiful… and brightly colored… and just … uh… her forehead, he just wanted to kiss it.
"So, the monster killed 30% of Konoha's ninja force and 10% of its civilian core, how long did that affect the village?"
Annnnd the warm feelings were gone, replaced with a cold and irritated irritation, the feeling of cold steel and cramped space, heavy chains pinning him to the floor… Naruto shuddered, shaking the foreign feelings off and trying to focus on what his crush was saying. Not that he could. He mind was a ping pong ball, and the lesson was the paddle.
"Good observation, Sakura-chan." Iruka started, grinning slightly as the pinkette preened under his slight praise, "Even ten years later, Konoha is still recovering from the Kyuubi's attack, but we've managed to remain more effective than the other Hidden Villages by a pretty high margin."
Naruto raised his hand.
"Yes Naruto-kun?"
"So… like… what was its name?"
Some of the students snickered. Iruka simply shook his head in fond exasperation of the boy.
"Weren't you paying attention at all, Naruto-kun?" More students laughed, a bit louder this time.
Mizuki snorted from where he sat, never once looking up from his papers. "Of course he wasn't," He said dryly, "This is Uzumaki Naruto we're talking about here."
The diminutive blonde clenched his fists and grit his teeth, "That… that ain't what I was askin'! I was just-" The words didn't come fast enough out of his mouth, he didn't think fast enough, leaving the boy a sputtering mess. He didn't even know why such a stupid question would cross his mind.
Iruka stopped him with a hand, "It was called Kyuubi, the nine tailed fox. Now, does anyone else have any questions?"
Sakura's hand shot up again.
...never shuts up...
"That's not what I meant!" Naruto snapped, his anger filling the classroom. It clouded him. Made him see red. Stuck here, silent staring alone and trapped waiting for nothing day after day after day and all he could see was his other half floundering and twisting and failing trying to find... "Shut up!" The words were out before he realized what he'd said. The foreign, bizarre anger left him in that moment, and he found himself standing in a silent classroom, everyone staring at him like he'd grown a second head. "Uh… that's not..."
Iruka rolled his eyes, "Naruto. Out. If you can't be civil, then go be silent. I'll talk to you after class."
"Uh… right. S-Sorry Sakura-chan, I mean… I wasn't yelling at you."
"So you're stupid and crazy?" Ino bit out. Sakura and Ino laughed loudest among their classmates as Naruto wandered out of the room.
"Naruto you have to control yourself when you're in my class. You can't just run around screaming at people." Iruka sighed, and sat down next to Naruto. He and the boy found themselves in the hallway of the academy, backs against the wall as the rest of the class filtered out of the room. For the most part they ignored the two, save for Sakura's and Ino's continuous jibing.
"Look, Naruto-kun."
The blonde, arms wrapped around his knees and staring against the opposing wall never looked over at Iruka.
"I'll be frank, and I don't want you to be mad, okay? You have the worst scores in this class. The worst. Your chakra signature is all over the place, you're always screaming at other people and when you're not doing that, you're doing stupid pranks..."
Naruto huffed into his arms.
"We can't keep doing this. Especially when this is the last year, the last chance for you to graduate. And I'm not gonna pass you if you're not ready, you know that, right? Better you be stuck here than dead out there on some mission, you get that, right?"
"I heard it again."
Iruka cringed a hint, but never betrayed his calm countenance. It wouldn't do Naruto any good if he caught his teacher acting as scared as everyone else did. He rested a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "I'm sorry, I know it's hard. Tell you what, lets get you some ramen, huh? Take your mind off things?"
The boy stopped hiding his face to look up at Iruka. "Yeah? Y'mean it?"
Nothing demonic, just the eyes of a frightened child with too much on his plate. Iruka sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, come on."
When you walk into your office and find Shimura Danzou sitting across from your desk, you know you're in for nothing but bad news. When you find him sitting in your office looking pensive and looking more unhappy than usual, that's how you knew something had gone very, very wrong.
Sarutobi found himself looking at the latter scene. An old, crippled warhawk staring out into the village… probably seeing a different time. A time when ninjas were ninjas, not glorified mercenaries.
He sighed.
"Well, the village isn't on fire and I haven't received ill reports of your men in Ame, so I assume whatever's happened isn't immediately malignant."
Danzou said nothing.
"I'm going to have tea. Do you want tea?"
"I would like some tea, yes."
His voice was gravel paved by war, and his gaze today was not so hawkish. Instead, Danzou seemed more contemplative as he stared out the window at the village, only stirring when Sarutobi set a teacup in front of the man. He took the small porcelain cup and sipped at the steaming hot beverage.
It was perfect.
"The council is pushing for me to take Naruto and train him as a weapon."
Sarutobi's expression froze. "Come to gloat then, old friend?"
A spiteful exhale was Danzou's only answer, "I do not want him. The time for training the boy as a weapon is long past, now." He took another sip, and finally looked up at Sarutobi. His old friend, his rival.
Ah… there was that hawkish gaze.
"You don't want the boy holding the Kyuubi?" His eyes turned frigid, "What's your game, hawk?"
"Sarutobi, have you seen his progress in the academy? Have you read the reports? Not by those idiot bigots that run the academy, but the actual reports." Barely taking a breath, Danzou set the teacup down and withdrew a sheaf of papers from inside his robe, "He's consistently testing at the level of a first level academy student across the board. Declared the weakest at taijutsu, and unable to keep up in any basic combat forms. Every prediction for what latent talent he might have has been dashed in lieu of undesirable personality traits and physical inferiority. The only thing he seems to excel at is his high chakra reserves. And now we have recent reports of instability and hearing a voice whisper in his mind."
Danzou leveled a look at Sarutobi.
"Even with the Kyuubi locked under the yondaime's and your seals, it still speaks to him. The boy is brittle… fragile… and he would be broken under me." Danzou frowned, "We have tried it your way, Sarutobi, and the results are not good. The results are… wasteful."
The older man stared at Danzou for a long while, watching as he went back to sipping his tea. Disappointment in ill reports was of the norm, but to outright disavow the child? Unexpected.
"Recommendation?" Sarutobi asked, settling his cup on the desk once again.
"See if Teuchi the Butcher can salvage the boy. If that does not work, reseal the demon in someone else and start again."
The room's temperature dropped under Sarutobi's glare.
"You asked, and I answered, Hokage-sama. He isn't just a child, and should not have been treated as such. He was bright and talented. Now that that has been squandered, he must be molded into a shape that is useful to the village."
Danzou groaned as he forced himself to his feet. Old joints creaked as he rested heavy on his cane.
"I will speak to Teuchi." Sarutobi stated, watching Danzou hobble out of the room. "...So, by the next quarterly report to the daimyo, then?"
The warhawk stopped, a small smile crossing his face, "You know how it goes. The nobles will want to see a show… the council will want to see a leashed demon. Me? I will settle for not having to reseal a demon inside the village. Best shot at keeping him alive is having him ready by the Chunnin exams."
Danzou vanished out of the door, and Sarutobi slumped into his seat.
"For all of this to come down to Teuchi… tch… what a mess."
"Hey! Hey old man! Your future hokage is here!" To his credit, Naruto tried not to sound too distressed, but Teuchi could hear it clear as day. It helped that the boy's voice was pitchier than a baby bird.
Teuchi raised an eyebrow at the future hokage. It'd been four years since that polite but energetic child arrived in his shop, and in his place was a child that had grown in body, but seemingly regressed in mind. He didn't need a specialized report to see that time in the village without a teacher hadn't served him particularly well.
Disappointment, thy name is Teuchi.
"I hear you fine boy, I hear you fine. You still want miso ramen, that right Naruto-kun? What about you, Iruka-kun? Maybe some beef?"
"Yeah, that'll be fine," Iruka smirked and rested his hand on Naruto's head. "Kid just had a hard time in class, so I decided to get him some ramen."
Teuchi sighed. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Lemme get started on your orders."
"He's always so grumpy." Naruto mumbled, kicking his feet as he waited. "You think its cuz he hates me like everyone else?"
The academy teacher laughed at that. "Naruto-kun, some people are just grumpy, and that's just how it is."
"Yes, unfortunately a lot of people my age don't deal well with the exuberance of youth." The hokage walked up to the stand, a single innocuous scroll resting in his arms. "Iruka-kun, I trust you are taking care of Naruto-kun?"
Iruka balked at the sudden appearance of the Hokage. "Ah! Hokage-sama, it's good to see you again." He took a deep breath and calmed his nerves… long enough for Naruto to spin in his chair and assault the old Sarutobi with his voice.
"Hey! Hey old man!"
"Ahh, hello Naruto-kun, are you dealing well in class?"
"Ah… uh… heh, future hokage! Right here!"
Without missing a beat, Sarutobi rested a hand on Naruto's head, giving him a small smile. "Glad to hear it." He couldn't quite keep himself from grimacing as Danzou's report came to mind. "Teach him well, Iruka-kun."
"Er... yes, Hokage-sama."
For a moment, the mood in the ramen shop soured. Sarutobi found himself facing the impending death of the child of a hero, Iruka was facing the impending failure of his favorite student, and Naruto… Naruto hadn't quite picked up on things yet.
"Orders up!" Teuchi walked out of the back of the shop wielding two bowls, and froze at the sight of the hokage holding a scroll.
"Yeah, ramen!" Naruto cheered.
"Yeah..." Teuchi muttered as he ambled towards the serving area, placing the bowls in front of Iruka and Naruto while staring dead at the scroll in Sarutobi's hands the whole time. "What's that supposed to be?"
Sarutobi set the scroll on the table, "It's a writ of authorization to reintroduce the butchers into the ninja force."
The ramen chef offered a flat stare, and for a moment, the ramen shack was filled with nothing but the noise of a boy slurping ramen. Even Iruka had placed his chop sticks down in silent contemplation.
The butchers were not nice people.
Teuchi sucked on his teeth in contemplation, "Why."
"HEY OLD MAN THIS IS REALLY GOOD!"
Teuchi's eyes narrowed on Sarutobi. "That's good, Naruto." It didn't take him long to put two and two together, "What, now you want me to train him? I may not have access to the reports, but I got ears, Sarutobi. Things aren't going well, are they?"
Sarutobi frowned deeply, "I'd like to discuss this with you privately."
"Heh. Why?" Teuchi couldn't quite help the spiteful laugh that escaped his mouth, "Not like he's payin' attention. Hasn't really been the same since all those years ago, you know?" The old ramen chef outright scowled. "Ain't like he knows what's goin' on any more."
As if to punctuate his point, Naruto slurped more ramen from his bowl, oblivious to the way Teuchi and Sarutobi were heatedly talking and the way Iruka was listening to the two men very carefully. Instead, Naruto noisily tried to say something with his mouth full, only to shrug when no one responded.
Sarutobi scoffed, and strode past the sitting area. "You're insufferable, Teuchi. Come."
"Tch, you old bat. Shop's closed, boys." Teuchi flipped the "Open" sign to "Close", and gave a wave. "See yourselves out."
It wasn't until he vanished into the back that Naruto finished his ramen, and found himself alone with concerned looking Iruka.
"Ehh? Where'd everyone go? I'm still hungry!"
Iruka scratched the back of his head, "Eh… I think he closed up for the day, Naruto-kun."
"Ehhh!?"
The two walked back to the cramped kitchen, and down a nearby set of stairs. It led them to another narrow ramshackle hallway that creaked and groaned under their combined weight, down to the basement of the ramen shack. Hooks and butcher knives and chains hung from the slatted metal walls, all stained black and rusty from use and disuse alike. Only a single table and two chairs, one upended, littered the ground.
"You still haven't cleaned up this place..." Sarutobi wrinkled his nose in distaste, "Still smells like blood and dirt down here, Teuchi."
"You kill people, things tend to get a little dirty." Teuchi walked to the table and groaned as flipped up the second chair. "A proper throne for the Hokage." He said with a flourish, before finally sitting down and resting his elbows on his knees.
Once again, the Hokage found himself being glared at. Danzou always felt the need to stay in control of his emotions, as per the shinobi guiding rules. Teuchi? Well… Teuchi was a civilian with a chip on his shoulder.
Sarutobi set the scroll on the table and sat down.
"The first time I met you down here, you had a C rank Iwa-nin chopped up on the table. All for your family… how are they in Tanzuku, by the way?"
Teuchi never broke eye contact. "Ayame's been holding a grudge the size of Ame, and my wife still sends me love letters like we're teens. She's very sweet. Why am I suddenly being asked to teach Naruto-kun, Sarutobi."
That was not a request, and Sarutobi wasn't petty enough to pick a fight over it. He sighed, and set his hat on the table.
"The council. I need you to teach him as much as you can as quickly as you can. Danzou has already refused and will be pushing to see the Kyuubi placed in another host."
"Ugh… rushing things means ugly results." Teuchi ran a hand over his face, "...Sarutobi, that kid barely knows what's goin' on, and you want me to teach him how to cut people open and be okay with it? I wasn't okay with it. It doesn't take much to figure that the kid isn't cut out for the sort of shit I did."
The Hokage stared at Teuchi for a long time, "I know. If I could have taught him myself, or had another… cleaner ninja do this, I would have, but..."
"But what?" Teuchi snapped, "You're the god damn hokage. You talk, people listen. That's how it goes right."
Sarutobi scoffed. "No. Let me be clear. If we were at war things would be different. In times of peace, a council of my peers; clan leaders and such, are instituted alongside a council of civilians to weigh every important decision I make. The Daimyo acts as tie breaker, and our current one often deigns in favor of civilians and is just as scared of the Kyuubi as the civilians." He leaned back in his chair, "I can not ask any ninja to train little Uzumaki without them promising to sponsor the boy outright, and to do that would mean that they stop their careers to tie themselves to a boy that has not… is not proven. Their success and reputation would be upon the boy's head, and Naruto-kun has not made many friends these past few years."
Teuchi glared back at Sarutobi, an accusation on his lips, baseless as it was. He bit back the insult, and gestured for the man to continue.
"The only reason I got the writ passed was because the civilians thought I was trying to get more food for my shinobi." He took a deep, tired breath, "This is the position I am in, Teuchi. I am sorry. Please help me."
Teuchi scoffed, "… Alright. I'll try to show em' what I can.
To Sarutobi, it was the closest thing to hope he could get.