7
Umino Iruka glanced at the two empty seats and frowned slightly. The Uchiha twins had an impeccable attendance record (at least Haku did anyway, and even Hana attended morning classes before she decided to go on an 'outing'). Their parents hadn't called; he knew his former student Hyuuga Hinata was very adamant about their schooling—they were the youngest children to enter the academy in some years now. Just when he made up his mind to call their house during the afternoon's lunch break, the classroom door slid open. Uchiha Haku peeked his small head into the room, glancing this way and that. He ignored the turned heads and stares of his classmates and locked eyes with Iruka. Then he walked into the room with his sister Hana following quietly in tow. The silence of the usually bouncy and energetic girl confounded him.
"Good morning, Iruka-sensei," Haku and Hana chimed in unison, bowing their heads respectively. He expected this from Haku, but Hana? Being a teacher for so many years, Iruka felt something tugging at his suspicion. He dismissed it however, because he knew their parents were very school-oriented, and he knew that Haku was responsible enough to reel his sister in long enough to attend classes. The young boy spoke for the both of them: "Hana woke up sick this morning. I convinced her to come to school. We're sorry we're late." Hana nodded her agreement, and Iruka felt relieved. That explains it. But still, something nagged at the back of his mind as the two children ascended the auditorium-style stairs to their seats near the back of the classroom.
"Are you kids lost?" a voice stopped them halfway down the hall. Holding hands, Haku and Hana simultaneously turned around to face the speaker, wincing slightly. Konohamaru held a stack of papers in both arms, looking puzzled. "Hana-chan, Haku-chan, what are you two doing here? Shouldn't you be in school?"
"We…have a message for Uncle Naruto from Daddy," Haku spoke stiffly, tightening his grip on his sister's hand.
"And he sent you two?" the older boy shook his head. "I doubt that. Sasuke would have walked it over himself." Haku blushed crimson, ducking his head in shame. Hana looked lost, where she would have normally jumped to Haku's defense. Konohamaru studied the two children (whom, he thought, were acting abnormally). He knelt beside them, glancing around—the hall was empty. "Do you really need to see Naruto?" he asked them. Surprised, they both nodded. Konohamaru nodded too and stood up, hefting his papers and gesturing for them to continue down the hall. They blinked up at him, then scurried up the red carpet floor and around the corner, leaving him behind.
"I'm sorry," Haku breathed as they raced up the tower steps, "I'm such a bad liar."
"I'm sorry," Hana shook her head as they entered the hallway and continued running, "that you had to lie for me."
When they got to the large embossed double doors, Haku pressed his ear cautiously to it. No voices. Hana nodded and they both pushed the doors open, walking inside the sunlit office.
"I told you," Uzumaki Naruto sighed and spun his rolling chair around from facing the glaring window, "to knock before you enter." When he didn't see anyone by the door, he blinked and glanced around the office. Then he jumped when tiny arms encircled his waist and looked down. "Hana! Haku!"
"We're sorry we're bothering you, Uncle Naruto," Haku pouted, looking up with tear-filled white eyes. "But Hana needs to ask you something."
"Uncle Naruto," Hana stared up with an identical sorrow-filled stare, with black eyes instead of white. "Tell us: are you sending Daddy on another dangerous mission?"
Naruto felt as if they had both slapped him. Hard. For a moment, he couldn't breathe as he stared in dazed wonder at the twins. Then, he placed a hand on each of their backs and tightened his lips, trying to choose his words carefully. "Your daddy and I…" he sighed, "the two of us will be going on a very important mission soon, yes."
"No!" Hana abruptly exploded, rage replacing her sadness instantaneously. "No, you can't! He's not going!"
"Hana," her brother slipped his arms from Naruto's waist and embraced his sister. "You promised you wouldn't yell at Uncle—"
"He's not going!" she repeated, a flash of red burning within her fierce eyes. "You won't take him away!"
"We'll be back as soon as we're done…" Naruto sat in his chair, struck dumb by the young girl's wild anger. "It's a simple escort mission—"
"He'll die if you send him!" she wailed, her fingernails clawing at his white overcoat. "Don't you get it? He'll die!"
He'll die.
His fingers trembled and rose into view, covered and dripping in dark crimson blood. The same vivid color dribbled from his mouth and into his eyes from his darkened hair.
"Sasuke…"
"No…" Naruto shuddered violently, shaking the image quickly from his mind. "No, Hana, it'll be okay," he spoke in a slightly quavering voice, not realizing he did so.
"Hana had a nightmare," Haku tried to explain for her.
"I dreamt that it was snowing and Daddy was sitting up against a tree, holding his stomach," she spoke faster, her words rushing out of her like she wanted to throw them away. "He had blood all over him and there was blood on the snow and two people were running away from him." She stared at him pointedly. "They were both blond."
Naruto's stomach clenched unpleasantly. He swallowed past a huge knot in his throat as the image Hana had described rose clearly in his mind, like an imprinted photograph.
"Hurry…"
"Sasuke!"
"You don't have much time…"
"No!"
"Go… Run!"
"I'm not leaving you!"
And then the fingers, the blood-covered fingers. They were fragments from his nightmare, he was certain of it. So if she was describing his nightmare, did she have the exact same one? Did they both have the nightmare about Sasuke dying? Is that what I dreamt?
"I would never," he frowned at the children, "ever leave your father to die like that. Do you understand me?" Haku looked ashamed and Hana torn. "He means too much to me—to you." He thought for a moment. "I want to tell you guys a story. Do you want to hear it?"
Hana looked cynical—the look was so identical to the one Sasuke had given him the night before that their faces overlapped in his mind for a moment. "You're just trying to change the subject," she wrinkled her nose distastefully.
"Not really," Naruto shrugged. "The story has to do with your father."
"Does it have to do about him dying?" she snapped.
"Hana…" Haku wailed.
"It'll explain how serious I am about him not dying," he answered her.
Haku was tugging on his sister's arm. "Hana, please! Let's listen to Uncle Naruto's story."
"I don't care about your story," she crossed her arms over her chest. "I care about Daddy. That's all."
"Should I tell you that it begins with your father dying a very long time ago?"
The twins faltered. Haku's eyebrows narrowed and Hana's face softened.
"Daddy died…before?" she looked confused.
"When he awoke his Sharingan, right?" he asked.
"Yeah," Naruto said, his voice grave and his eyes unfocused, looking back on the past. "Do you want to hear the story?" The twins both nodded in unison.
So he told them everything. He told them of their father's past: Itachi, the slaughter, Sasuke's life-long goal. Their meeting, their team, their rivalry, and their first big mission in the Wave Country. He introduced them to Haku and Zabuza and Tazuna and Inari. He explained how their father "died" protecting him after activating his Sharingan eye. He went on to Gaara, the Chunin Exams, Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunande, and the fight at the Valley of the End. He explained that he disappeared for three years to severely train himself in an attempt to catch up to Sasuke. Their hunt, the mission, the first meeting, and everything after that until the final fight and how he and Sakura finally brought Uchiha Sasuke home. He talked through bouts of laughter, tears, and nausea and left nothing out. The children had migrated onto the couch for his tale, and at its end, they were both in tears. When Naruto finally finished talking, Hana wailed loudly and threw herself at him again.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Naruto! I'm sorry I didn't believe you! I'm sorry I said such mean and nasty things! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" she sobbed into his chest.
"I know you didn't mean it, Hana, so it's okay," he stroked her hair back out of her red face and grinned down at her. "Now you understand that I love your daddy too." She nodded against him and clung on tighter.
Haku remained on the couch. "So that's what really happened," he murmured, looking down at his hands thoughtfully. "No wonder Daddy never told us anything. He didn't want us to know how painful our family's history was."
"Don't be mad at him for that," Naruto looked over from comforting the female twin. "I'm not sure I should have told you all of that, but I want you two to understand what your father and I went through together, so you can believe me when I say I won't let anything happen to him."
"I believe in you, Uncle Naruto," he nodded, almost dismissively. "I understand why Daddy did what he did, too. Because he loves us, right?"
"Right," Naruto nodded.
"And if he loves us, and he loves you, and he loves Aunt Sakura, and he loves Mommy…" he counted on his fingers, "then he won't die very easily, because he has a lot of people waiting for him."
"Exactly," the blond gave another nod.
"I don't want Daddy to die," Hana whimpered into his clothing.
"I won't let him die," Naruto turned her face up to his. "I promise you. I swear to you, on my life, I'll never let him die."
"We don't want you to die either, Uncle Naruto," Haku spoke up from the couch. "Please, you need to be careful too." Against him, Hana nodded her head.
"I'll be fine," he grinned lightly. "Don't you worry about me. Just concern yourself with your training and your Daddy and I will worry about everything else. And speaking of that," he rubbed Hana's back and attempted to change the subject, "how is your training going?"
Before they could answer his question though, a bell rang outside. Naruto pivoted in his chair, holding Hana as he did so, and glanced out of the large window. The sun had changed its position since the twins had arrived in his office, and he could see a flood of children exiting the academy building. It clicked in his head.
"Weren't you two supposed to be in school?" he turned back around to lift an eyebrow at Haku. The young boy averted his gaze and slid off the couch, coming around the desk and reaching for his sister.
"Come on, Hana. We have to go before Mommy gets suspicious," he said.
"You skipped?" he asked in amazement. Hana, he knew, did skip on occasion but Haku? "Aren't you worried that Iruka-sensei will call your parents?"
"No," he answered simply and wiped the tears from his sister's eyes. "Here," he told her gently, "your hair's all messy."
"Where are we meeting them?" she sniffled, fighting with her kick of black spikes.
"Meeting who?" Naruto asked, confused.
"Our kagebunshin," Haku explained.
Naruto blinked. "Kagebunshin?"
"They have our homework," Hana grinned weakly.
"Homework?" he felt stupid. Then it clicked again. "Wait, you sent kagebunshin to school in your place?"
"Yes," Haku nodded.
"It was Haku's idea," Hana said proudly.
"Hana wanted to come see you privately," Haku elaborated.
He was amazed. "Kagebunshin," he repeated, his lips twitching in amusement. "You guys are learning too much from me."
"Don't tell, please," Haku's brow winkled.
"We just wanted to talk to you about Daddy," Hana looked at him pleadingly.
"I know, I know," he nodded his head, grinning at them, "it was a really important talk, after all." The twins nodded earnestly, reaching for each other's hands. "I won't tell anyone, I promise," Naruto agreed and then rose from his chair, leading them across the room to a small side door concealed by a gathering of bunched curtain (usually used to shut out the light and the view of the long glass window behind his desk). He pulled it open, stuck his head inside, glanced about the room on the other side, and straightened, looking down at the kids. "This door leads to a room that I use to rest when I can't leave the office. It has a staircase that leads directly down to the first floor, in case of an emergency. Use that, and make sure Nara doesn't see you on your way out."
"Got it," Hana affirmed.
"Thank you, Uncle Naruto," Haku bowed.
"Shoo, shoo!" he ruffled their twin heads of hair and smiled at them affectionately. "I'll come over later today, okay?"
"Okay!" they twin-chimed and set off on their escape from the tower. Naruto closed the door behind them and went over to the main door, sticking his head out.
"Oi! Konohamaru!" he yelled.
"Yes?" the younger man called back, approaching from his left.
"Go get me Shikamaru," Naruto ordered.
Konohamaru blinked. "Nara? What for?"
"Just," Naruto flailed a little, "go get him for me!"
"Okay, okay," the other man blinked at the display from the hokage. "I'll get him. Calm down."
"And hurry!" Naruto watched him until his assistant disappeared down the stairs.