Kakashi was careful to be up, showered, dressed, and gone before Naruto woke up, leaving behind a shadow clone to make breakfast and escort her to the training grounds. He'd agonized over which task to assign his clone to, wanting to spend every moment with his charge, but had to admit that Iruka would be far more upset to find out he was speaking to a clone than his students would be. He comforted himself with the thought that he'd get those memories of being with her later, and set off in the brisk early morning sunlight to find the schoolteacher who was so invested in his student.
Truthfully, Kakashi didn't know the chūnin very well, but he liked him, having observed over the years the brotherly affection and attention he lavished on Naruto. He'd been the first to really take interest in the girl, to be concerned with making her smile, and Kakashi was fairly certain she never would have graduated the academy without his influence. He'd never been to the man's apartment, but he was pretty sure he knew which building it was, and from there he was able to find the right door to knock on by looking for his chakra signature.
He paused for a moment with his fist raised, running his lines over in his head. This had to go well. It was vital that Kakashi was the one to break the news to the chūnin; it would position them as being allies, on the same side, sharing a vested interest in Naruto's safety and well-being. The extra chakra signature in the apartment was a good sign; if Iruka was entertaining an adult friend regularly, he probably would be more likely to entrust Naruto's care to Kakashi. It was all strategy, and Kakashi was good at strategy.
He knocked, and waited, listening to shuffling inside the residence, and didn't bother trying to feel or look sheepish for waking the occupants. This was important. He knew Iruka knew that, saw it in the way his brow pinched when they made eye contact.
"What's happened?" he asked immediately, astute.
Kakashi made a show of lowering his eye. "Naruto is okay," he began, and the other man tensed all over, pulling his robe tighter across his shoulders. "But something has happened. I need you to come with me to her apartment, then speak to her. I'll explain on the way."
He could see it in the chūnin's eyes that he wanted to argue, wanted to demand to know what was going on immediately, but he clenched his jaw, nodded once, and said, "Give me two minutes to get dressed."
…
By the time they reached the apartment, Iruka was crying, and Kakashi never knew how to handle it when people cried. He patted the man awkwardly on the shoulder as he eyed the law enforcement and cleaners filtering in and out of Naruto's apartment, the barriers arranged to keep civilians out. "Why didn't she tell me?" the chūnin asked, the words edging on begging. "I would have protected her, I would have…"
Kakashi didn't know why she hadn't, and didn't know what to say to comfort him. So instead he spoke to the first law enforcement official he caught the attention of. "Excuse me. The girl who lives here is our student—" He gestured at Iruka, trying to keep emphasizing the on-the-same-team angle. "—and we're here to collect some of her things. Is that acceptable?"
The man eyed them up and down, perhaps confused by the presence of a weeping chūnin schoolteacher alongside Kakashi of the Sharingan. But he nodded, and said, "Of course. We've released the crime scene, it's being cleaned now. Everything we need has already been removed from the property." Then he paused, lowered his voice and leaned in. "Is she okay? I was one of the first responders last night, I was the one who got her dressed and walked her to headquarters. She wouldn't speak to me the whole time. I couldn't sleep for thinking about her…" He did seem tired, with deep shadows under his eyes. "So I clocked back in an hour or so ago to help with supervising evidence collection and cleanup."
"She's fine," Kakashi said in a clipped tone. When the official looked unconvinced, he added, "She's strong. Resilient. She'll recover. May we..?" The man nodded, stepping aside to let them go about their business. Iruka thanked the man as they passed—both for his permission to enter and his care for Naruto. Vaguely, Kakashi wondered if he should have said thank you, too.
Naruto's studio apartment was small, shabby, and sparsely furnished. It was only three steps from the bed to the tile that marked the edge of the kitchen, and her desk seemed to double as her kitchen table, adorned with unwashed dishes from dinner the previous night where it was pressed against the wall not far from the entrance. The mattress had been removed from her twin-sized bed and the frame shifted, so that a scruffy-haired civilian could scrub at the blood staining the tiles underneath it.
"She really killed him?" Iruka wondered, eyeing the blood. At Kakashi's nod, his gaze hardened, and he spat good with such vitriol that he thought yeah, I like Iruka just fine.
He let Iruka lead the way on packing her things, figuring he knew her apartment and her habits better than Kakashi did. But he hovered, learning, standing behind the schoolteacher as he opened up her tiny closet and immediately pulled out an ancient duffel bag. The closet was small; Naruto's clothes hung above a clearly thrifted chest of drawers, mostly copies of her vibrantly orange jumpsuit. Iruka pulled these off the hangers and stuffed them into her bag, alongside some t-shirts. Then he paused, something melancholy on his face as he fingered the hem of a pretty orange sundress embroidered with white flowers, the only distinctly feminine garment in the lot.
Kakashi didn't have to ask, Iruka just started to explain, eyes and words distant. "I took her clothes shopping when she became a genin. Just basics, you know, socks and undershirts and new shoes. I kept catching her staring at this dress, touching it, with this look on her face like it was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen. I went back later and bought it for her as a present, but I've never seen her wear it." He paused, dropping the lacy hem. "I've rarely seen her in anything other than her baggy jumpsuit. I always thought she was just being practical in her own quirky way, but… I don't know, now I can't help but think she was hiding her body, trying not to be seen."
Kakashi hummed, pretending not to notice the man wiping another tear from his eye. Iruka was probably right, in his own estimation. He was aware that Naruto was unusually conservative with her body. He'd supervised the team swimming once or twice, and she had refused to remove anything other than her shoes and socks, while Sakura had changed into shorts and a tank top. And he knew the blonde refused to change in front of her female teammate; he'd heard her being teased about it. "You should pack it for her," he suggested in a tone that betrayed no interest in the matter whatsoever. "Might cheer her up."
Iruka looked up at him then, really studied him, searching the parts of his face he left uncovered. "Minato took you in when you were his genin," he acknowledged slowly. "Are you… Um, is Naruto coming back here?"
He understood how important his response would be. He'd been thinking about what he'd say, how he'd say it. "Maa…" He made a show of looking uncomfortable, breaking eye contact and shrugging like it didn't matter to him either way. "I have space. There's a room in my apartment that I've been using as storage. She doesn't have to come back if she doesn't want to."
The chūnin hummed, jaw working, but Kakashi caught no suspicion in the man's eyes, just thoughtful consideration. "I could take her," he said. "I've always been willing to take her. She'd be on the pull out couch, I don't have a room for her… But I would take her in a heartbeat. Should we ask what she'd prefer?"
Kakashi wanted to protest, but knew there were no reasonable grounds on which to do so, so he merely agreed. Iruka, seemingly satisfied, pulled the rest of her clothes off their hangers, including the dress, and knelt to roll them into smaller shapes to fit them carefully into the duffel. Kakashi knelt down to help, and watched out of the corner of his eye as Iruka opened up each of the drawers and emptied them in turn, pulling out modest piles of shorts, socks, and underwear and leaving them to Kakashi to pack away.
The bag was only a little more than two-thirds full when it contained the entirety of her wardrobe. Kakashi watched with masked interest as Iruka moved fluidly about Naruto's apartment, seeming to know where everything precious to her was located. He retrieved a worn stuffed dog from where the cleaning crew had set it against the wall, a journal and a framed photo of team seven from her wobbly bedside table, and what Kakashi could only imagine was a favorite mug from the kitchen, before snatching up what Kakashi recognized as her field pack from beside the door. The last was to gather her notebooks and toiletries, which turned out to be amusingly simple, consisting of her toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, a well-used hairbrush, and a half-empty men's three-in-one shampoo, conditioner, and body wash.
Everything of value that Naruto owned, it would turn out, could fit into that duffel and her backpack. Aside from the plants, of course, which lined both windowsills. Iruka said something about coming back for them, and Kakashi nodded his agreement, and that was it. Naruto's apartment was packed up. Twenty minutes later, every personal item she owned was stored in Kakashi's apartment, and the pair were walking in a grave silence towards the training grounds.
They'd discussed what was going to happen. They both knew that news of the sensational and scandalous circumstances of Naruto's landlord's death was spreading even as they walked. Iruka would take Naruto for a chat, provide emotional support or whatever it was that you were supposed to do, and then escort her to the Sandaime (the chūnin was in far better favor with the Hokage than Kakashi), who'd already summoned her. Kakashi would be left the task of explaining what had happened to his other two genin before they heard it around town, and then he'd probably pop in with the other jōnin sensei to give them a heads up and the option to talk to their own genin.
Kakashi couldn't remember any time something like this had happened to a genin of the Leaf. It wasn't common in Konoha to begin with, as a result of brutal and liberally applied punishments for sexual assault and child pornography as well as the ubiquitous presence of trained shinobi. Nearly any time he had heard of it, it occurred within a family; sexual abuse of children by strangers was virtually unheard of in their village. Naruto was a uniquely vulnerable target, he supposed, perhaps the only child in the village that lacked adult supervision entirely outside of school.
Though technically, legally, Naruto had stopped being a child when she took the hitai-ate. Orphaned genin under the age of 18 existed in a strange legal area, afforded some rights and protections but not others. That was the most baffling part to Kakashi. What kind of an idiot civilian would attack a ninja, even a small, green one?
Even as he thought it, though, he knew the answer: one that believed he'd done well enough at manipulating and blackmailing her to keep her obedient.
He was so distracted by his thoughts that he didn't realize they'd reached the training grounds until he was hit with memories of how Naruto had smiled at his clone at being offered breakfast, and how she'd chattered away about training during the whole walk to meet up with Sakura and Sasuke. They'd been set to sparring, and it was Sasuke that noticed them first, eyes darting to the tree his clone had been pretending to read in while he'd kept an eye on their progress. He said something to his sparring partner, and she turned, her big blue eyes bright with excitement, but upon seeing Kakashi and Iruka, the light in them died, and an awful dead expression came over Naruto's face.
No one spoke until they had drawn close. Sasuke and Sakura had clearly picked up that something was wrong, radiating tension, but Naruto just looked defeated and small as she asked Kakashi uncertainly, "You told...?"
He only let his voice come out a little softer and more sympathetic than his usual impassive rumble. "Yes, Naruto. Thought he shouldn't hear it from rumors, or the newspaper. I'm sorry, but everyone is going to know by the end of the day. It's public record." His heart broke at the way every word that left his lips seemed to shrink her, take all the fight out of the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her chin. He glanced at the rest of his team—Sakura looked like she wasn't sure she wanted to know, and Sasuke seemed offended he didn't know already. Sakura had always been the smartest of his genin. "Do you want to tell your teammates yourself, or do you want me to do it?"
Naruto sought Iruka for guidance, and Kakashi didn't let himself turn to see the chūnin's expression, biting down his childish envy that he was not the one she turned to. She bit her lower lip, and her eyes fell to her feet, but her voice was steady as she asked quietly, "Will you tell them for me, sensei?" Then, eyes darting up to his, "Only… only the parts you have to."
"I'll do it," Kakashi promised her. "Go with Iruka, you have the rest of the day off."
Kakashi stood watching them walk away for a few moments. They weren't quite out of eyeshot yet when the schoolteacher broke, pulling Naruto into a hug with his shoulders shaking. When they finally disappeared around the corner, he turned to find his remaining students had been watching, too, and were shaken by what they'd seen, the girl looking quite frightened while the boy was doing his best not to look perturbed. Green eyes met his, full of dread and question, and he spared a moment to mourn that he couldn't save his—his students, his pups, the young ones of his pack, from the awful conversation they needed to have. He'd been trying like hell for months to not show them how attached he'd gotten, that he was soft for them, but they deserved softness from him then.
Slowly, Kakashi sank down onto his knees, to be closer to them in height, and gestured them forward until he could take each them by the sleeve and look up at them. "Something happened last night," he began gently, looking between them and reading all the uncertainty in their eyes. "Naruto killed someone."
Sasuke's jaw dropped, and Sakura's hands flew up to cover her mouth. "What, on accident?" Sasuke asked, baffled, at the same time Sakura demanded, "Is she in trouble? Is she going to jail?"
"She's not in trouble," he soothed. Then he took a deep, bracing inhale, and said the hard part. "The man she killed was trying to sexually assault her." Their reactions were predictable, but it still drove knives into his chest to see them. Sakura began to cry immediately, and Sasuke's fists balled up, sharingan activated involuntarily, trembling with rage that Kakashi understood perfectly. Rip the bandage off. He didn't give them time to process before he concluded softly, "She said he'd been coming into her apartment and touching her since around the time she started at the academy."
"Why did she let him?" Sasuke demanded immediately, in a snarl that made his other student flinch. "Why didn't she tell someone? Or at least kill him sooner?"
Kakashi let his fingers fist in the boy's sleeve, let his eye harden and his voice become firm. "It's hard to understand something like that if you haven't experienced it, Sasuke. I can't speak for Naruto, but I would guess she was ashamed. Maybe she didn't even understand what was happening at first. And you have to remember how people treated her before she became a genin."
Recognition sparked in Sasuke's eyes as he blinked and they faded to black, grief replacing his indignation. "She didn't think anyone would care," he realized, words colored with something like regret.
Kakashi hummed. "That's what I think." Then he tugged on the boy's shirt, his words taking on a dangerous edge as he warned, "If you ever say anything like that to her, anything that implies it was her fault, you will regret it. Am I understood?"
Sasuke nodded, with the good grace to look ashamed for half a second before he stuffed all his feelings behind an impassive mask that Kakashi knew would one day rival his own. "Don't worry, sensei," he swore in that intense way that was simultaneously mature and heartbreakingly childish. "I'll protect her."
Kakashi let his sleeve go and patted him on the arm, then turned to Sakura, who was weeping and wiping ceaselessly at her eyes. "I know Naruto irritates you sometimes—" he began diplomatically, but Sakura cut him off, with that serious, adult look that always managed to surprise him.
"I love her like she was my sister," she insisted, sniffling. "I'll be patient with her, I promise, sensei."
He let his hands fall into his lap, and gave them a sad smile. Then he forced a happy one, letting his exposed eye fall shut as he praised them, "Good, very good, both of you. I'm proud of you. Do me a favor and be kind to each other today, too, won't you?" He directed the question at Sasuke, whose gaze flickered to his crying teammate before he nodded. "I'm under the impression that Iruka-sensei has arranged for a counselor to be available to you and the rest of the genin on your old school playground. Take Sakura, Sasuke, and keep an eye on things for me. Others may join you after a while." Kakashi tried to hide his amusement at the way Sasuke's prickly resistance melted into solemn obedience at having his presence in group therapy labelled 'keeping an eye on things.' "I have to go talk to the other jōnin sensei. Are you two alright?"
With a curt nod from Sasuke and a brave yes, sir from Sakura, he sent them off, lingering just long enough to shut his eyes and wonder again who thought that he should have ever been involved in this situation. He'd already had to tell Naruto's awful story twice and it wasn't even 9:30. But there was nothing for it. Kakashi took a deep, steadying breath, and set off to find Guy, Asuma, and Kurenai, bracing himself for three more horrible conversations full of feelings he didn't know how to deal with.