Transmission # 3-4-8-0. Addendum "Telemachus"
North Side the Wall, Tokyo Urban; Hidden Village: "Leaf"
Building 3, Compound 2; Captain Umino wanders The Academy halls - he is alone.
2000 hrs; December 8, 1963
The road to become a ninja is not an easy one.
Wasn't for Iruka.
When the blast from the bomb tore through his house, ripped apart the steel frame of the window, thrust hot shards of glass into his face, he thought he'd be blind for the rest of his life. When the sound of the boom rattled his home, curiosity beckoned him to see what was going on - he'd heard the air raid sirens, heard the thrum of the B-52 flying above. The young boy of only twelve had gotten used to the shake of bombing raids. Even before his parents were stationed in Hiroshima on Hashirama's orders.
But this was different.
And afterward as he lay in that cot, searching for answers above in the wafting sheets of the makeshift triage station a few miles beyond the city, the only thing going through Iruka's mind was, is this fated?
Was he meant to live while his parents died?
Was it necessary they be taken, all in order for his journey to becoming a shinobi begin?
Is that where it all began for shinobi as a whole - a singular moment of pain to spurn them onward, to test their mettle and strength in an indecent world, where all you were one day can change the next.
This was one of the first things Iruka tried to impart to his students in their time spent attending The Academy. "It's our turn to become shinobi - now we get to prove ourselves!" Usually these were the thoughts flying through their heads. Innocent and naive. As children are want to be. And as a proctor, this was the type of ignorance Iruka was tasked to weed out. For to be a member of a Hidden Village requires respect for the basics, and pride whence they all derive. Tonight as Iruka looked out over his students, how they've matured, their baby fat long since dissipating over years of intense training, he knows he sid a good job.
And he hates himself for it.
Lonely steps echo against the worn wooden floors of his Academy - for after all these years, he did think of this place as his. Walking these pathways became like a second-nature to him, even with the energy rationing keeping three-quarters of it shrouded in darkness. Didn't matter. Iruka could practically navigate the Academy's floors blindfolded if he wished. As he made his way through the now-empty halls, the vaguely recalls the laughter and the scuffling of students. They've now since faded, leaving behind only the creaks and sighs of an old, old building—a castle built of stone, mortar, and generations of sacrifice.
Many children were broken in these walls, and they were put back together like some kind of Frankenstein's monster of chakra, jutsu, and steel tools. Innocence was foregone a long time ago, with countless burning out before they earned their genin headbands. So many graves in their cemetery were dated between 1946-1958.
Fourteen years - about the average lifespan of a new trainee. Those who made it beyond that point were deemed "competent". Or lucky.
Which Naruto most assuredly can be.
Be careful. Be safe. Be aware of who you trust.
There were countless things Iruka longed to say to him. Too many, in fact, for their customary get-togethers.
But, above all else, come back.
Yet, in their world silence was not just golden but often the only shield protecting one against...
Well...
If the Watchtower was anything to go by.
Yes, Iruka parroted the propaganda publicly and loudly. As was expected of his new rank and station. It was an "accident", a "lapse" in competence, a careless dereliction of defense which will be reviewed. Iruka was no fool, though; circumstances were all too convenient for the newly vetted captain, a position which rose and fell so long as he does not question, does not talk. For "silence" in Konoha was a mercy.
So, perhaps, it was a better Iruka never had the chance to see Naruto off. Words, no matter how heartfelt, would have only burdened the boy with the weight of another promise he might not be able to keep.
And draw more attention to him than needed.
Medals jingle upon his chest - awards and commendations for acts he himself felt silly for having to accept. He turns the corner and the heavy Cross for Camaraderie bangs against a button, the Noble Star of Stewardship tears at its ribbon again, and the Athletic Award for Merit Towards Literature, and The Will To Pursue Extracurricular Activities knocks against the little bronze medallion of the Bronze Hammer Society...
He was proud of some, ashamed of few, and positively thought the grand majority were strictly table scraps to window dress him up as a upstanding, good-willed citizen this Democratic People's Republic of Japan.
Ugh, he wanted - needed - a drink.
But Naruto was gone.
So instead Iruka simply remionisces down these dreary, lonesome halls. Getting lost on the road of life as Kakashi would say, wondering really where the road to "ninja" began, and the goal for Statehood ended.
For his students, the year is 1581. After being driven from their home in Maruyama by the demon lord Nobunaga, the motley band of remnants found themselves in the thick forests of Kanto. Whilst Nobunaga pillaged and crucified their fledgling republic on his road to empire, the Iga founded a new haven at the base of Fuji itself. In their desperation and ingenuity, they carved into the rock of a volcano, and called it sanctuary. They cleared out old oni havens, drove out the bandits, and forged a village to rival their ransacked home of Iga Tsubagakure. Hidden behind the numerous maples, oaks, beeches, hemlocks, and Fuji cherries; with nothing but leaves to shield them from Kyoto bailiffs, the Iga survived.
And not so long afterward enacted their revenge at Honno-ji, under the lazy gaze of a Buddha who did not care, and a vassal whose allegiance was dubious to his lord.
Iruka found it fun to dabble in a bit of mystery, never fully telling his kids whether the Iga truly facilitated Nobunaga's assassination, or if Akechi-dono was the real culprit all along. With a smirk, he'd always chide them. If so, he would say, it remains the greatest feat any Konoha shinobi till this point: for the truth was never revealed, nor will it ever for that matter.
Afterwards the Iga persisted. Outlasting the Oda, then his presumptuous successor Hideyoshi, and later over two-hundred and fifty years of the Tokugawa, too.
Iruka liked to teach that's where it all began, back in some fabled past where "revolution" merely meant surviving, defiance defined by dogged determination in the face of three empire makers. Unlike the grittier aspects of their livelihoods, at least this felt untouched and wholly idealistic. Not great for history lessons, but it was nice to have something still yet untainted by Hokkaido Sontaku, a perception where the Presidium presumes the desires of The People. Whilst she breathed Utatane considered herself a master of the concept, and tried to whitewash Konoha's origins from the history texts. She called it nonessential to the story of The State, that it implied it was the Iga ninja who were the bedrock for the DPRJ, and not The Noble One himself. Passing the Corrections Act of May 13th, 1948, she positioned herself as the head of an established group of writers and historians who wished to co-opt a comprehensive story on the beginnings of their nation.
To them, the story does not begin with the advent of a sanctuary for outlawed shinobi.
It starts April 22th, 1945.
The day The Noble One set foot back on Japanese soil, requisitioning a boat to steal him away to the frigid port of Hakodate.
There in the swirling snow swells, coming on a dark blue sea, black and treacherous as the surf nearly thrashed rheir gessel against the rocks, Nosaka-Sempai ended his long Chinese banishment. On that day he linked up with the cadres of a resistance group formed after the fall of the Ryukyu islands and Shuri Castle, where they were lead by his longtime pupil Senju Hashirama. Who, through great personal risk, defied orders given by Chief of the General Staff Yoshijiro Umezu, and opted not to go south. To defend Kyushu, to plan and prep against the imminent invasion, and of course to protect the Shogunate's last ditch plan to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Or, an honorable death.
Fading lamplight stutters as a draft is let in by worn down floorboards. Yellowed paper screens undulate and ripple as light washes over their surface like a raging ocean, bringing a few of the frescoes to life: The flight of Sattoru Iga - their first "chief" - from a burning Ueno along with his retainers, the progenitors of Konoha's clans; the duel between Sasuke Sarutobi and the monkey king Enma; of Kaguya and her descent to the islands of Japan, and her teaching of the art of chakra to her sons Hamura and Hagaromo the founders of ninshu - Iruka genuinely hated that story.
Iruka pulls back one of the screens to a room he is fondly familiar with. The chalkboard still has scribblings on it from Friday's last lesson; he has since forgotten it entirely, as other things have clogged his mind. Iruka passed by the rows of empty desks, his hand brushing the edge of one as if to grasp something intangible. Here, Naruto once sat, brimming with untamed energy and desperation for acceptance. There, Sasuke brooded in quiet torment. And Sakura, caught between strength and vulnerability.
He had watched them all grow, struggle, and suffer. And yet he had to dutifully stand by, playing the role of the benevolent guide while knowing the truth lurking behind the headband: they were "assets," Iruka thought bitterly. Least, that's what Tobirama saw them ass. Not children. Not hopeful dreamers chasing the light of their own ambitions. Just cogs in the great machine of the Sapporo Presidium.
Communism as a whole is not a faulty system, and far be it for Comrade Iruka to suggest such an inflammatory, treacherous thought. However, as a man of learning, when hysteria clouds truth, when the heart of the People becomes poisoned by rhetoric, when ignorance is lauded as intelligence; how is it possible for any to carry on the Will of Fire? They are more like to burn themselves like the cavemen they are becoming. Ever going backward, not forward.
Iruka felt like a wandering ghost, drifting through memories that once made him feel alive. The camaraderie of his own youth, the laughter shared with comrades who now lay beneath the earth, the fleeting moments when he believed he could protect these children from the darkness that awaited them.
But he couldn't.
The village demanded more. The system demanded more.
Iruka picks up an eraser to wipe away the notes hastily scrawled, diagrams half-erased, the faint smudges of youthful curiosity and distraction. But amidst the mess of kanji, one phrase remained stark and deliberate:
律自—Jiritsu.
To Noble Nosaka Sanzo, this word defined his wntire life. From his struggle escaping Sugamo Prison in '35, linking up with Mao in '36, and enduring the Long March and guerrilla warfare fighting wirh rhe Chinese Soviets against his own countrymen. Self-discipline, the mastery of one's will—both the weapon and the shield of a shinobi. For his followers, it was more than just philosophy; it was a lesson in survival, in purpose.
Iruka let out a slow breath. His fingers brush against the kanji lightly, feeling the chalk dust coat his skin. How many students truly grasped Juritsu? How many understood that discipline was not a virtue but the foundation upon which they built their futures?
Perhaps this was where the road to becoming shinobi began? Not on the battlefield, not in the heat of combat, but here—in the quiet of an empty classroom, where the first seeds of conviction were planted. Where a simple lesson on a chalkboard could shape the course of a life...
No, that wasn't what Utatane-san would've wanted to hear. Classrooms are for bullies and debutantes - history is decided in the acrimonious flair-ups between egos, the beating of fists against chests laden with medals on the Presidium floor. Students may very well surge the upswell, feed the fire if necessary, as was the case following the Shogunate's defeat and the Noble One's triumph. Who but children road side by side with him as the JPR 1st Brigade sped south, with the Soviet 1st and 2nd Red banner armies from Manchuria at their heels. "The way The State works, we need heroes. That is the only way we survive. Unlike the imperialist West, the Communist theory requires strong personalities. That is why the youth of our nation are useful - propaganda always benefits from vibrant, young faces. Without them our way of life simply goes extinct" Koharu was quoted as saying in Shimbun Akahata.
Iruka remembers vividly listening in an Army hospital where his mother worked of Nosaka's advance to the south. They were calling it the "Great March South" in the Nippon Times, and Iruka recalls of the pictures on the front page of the newspaper. That was summer time of 1945. At that time Sanzo seemed unstoppable. And with the Americans and Brits coming up from the south, the Chinese, Koreans, and Soviet coming from the north, to everyone in the city of Hiroshima it felt Japan's lifeblood was being squeezed out and would soon spill into the sea. His father joked he wondered what new islands would sprout up once it did.
But, just before Nosaka was on the precipice of "liberation", as the Shogunate forces succumbed to the pressures of the communist coalition from Hokkaido, a steel bird took flight off Tinian island on August 6th. The Enola Gay traveled 18.5 km till it reached its destination final destination, when it dropped "Little Boy" and halted The Noble One's army of children, disgruntled students, veterans of China, upturned bourgeois, and hardened Ruskies.
Iruka survived the first bomb.
His parents didn't.
Along with a great deal of many others - one hundred and forty-thousand to be exact.
The second bomb at Nagasaki three days later forced Nosaka to bite his tongue, shove the rhetoric up his ass, and cause him to sue for an accord. The Allies were tired of blood and wanted to be spared further campaigns to root out further resistance in the northern provinces. That would be the Communist's problem now. And so on January 1, 1946, at the conclusion of a World War which so much wanton destruction, Nihon, the land of the Rising Sun, the fabled islands of Izanagi and Susanoo, were divided like pieces of beef. Cut in half at the 36th parallel. It was the start of an unprecedented new world order. With Sanzo's Red State of the North, and the imperialist, capitalist, traitorous Southern Republic. With Konoha sitting as a loyal watchdog between the two. Looking over the Tokaido, the Eastern Sea Road, that ran like a vein as it did back in medieval times.
Perhaps, in the aftermath of 1945, that's where the road began...?
The postwar period was a feeling out process for both sides; North and South coalesced around their given borders, waiting with a begrudging curiosity to see where this political innuendo will take them. Years from 1946-49 were...problematic as one might expect from new nation-states. And the people were torn.
Choices were to either reside in the South under the watchful gaze of their conquerors and their puppet government, or perhaps take their chances with the "firebrand" Nosaka. It was hard convincing for many considering for years The Noble One had been branded as an upstart, a traitor, a woe-begotten malcontent with a middling political career and subpar literary skills. Plus, the Emperor still remained in Kyoto - and for all the bluster the Americans brought with them, the Imperial House still stood. All the trials and tears they endured under his insouciant stare, and yet many Japanese citizens remained loyal to Hirohito.
Nosaka understood this. When writing up the Constitution of his Democratic People's Republic, the opening words written were thus: "The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power."
A farce, of course; there was little love lost between the Imperial household and Nosaka since his arrest in '33 and up till his escape.
But The Noble One knew the only way to garner support from a nation enthralled by the idea of divine statehood was to ensure he is, and always shall be, a loyal servant to the Emperor. All he wished to impose upon the man was that his strength was not only derived from divine nature, but also the will of the people he leads. The message was not as well received, majority of Japanese remained steadfast in their devotion. This necessitated the institution of the Sai -jinko program in 1950. Literally 're-population". It prompted large swathes of immigration to Hokkaido and Honshu by Chinese and Korean communists. The North struggled to regain its pre-war population, and so tried to attract immigrants to populate the abandoned and destitute farms and factories which needed workers.
Many in the North, however, viewed these "comrades" as nothing more than carpetbaggers from the mainland; they were agrarian mercenaries, who appropriated the land as they saw fit, pushed out former communities who had been living their for generations, and paved the way for more of their own to follow suit. At the time, it was called the "Four Pests Plague". The pests being Chinese, Manchurian, Korean, and even a few Russians. Aomori, the northernmost prefecture of Honshu, had seen a Russian community grow in size from one hundred and fifty around the Soviet consulate there in May 1950, to almost twelve hundred in the same month the following year.
The isolated and vacuous Northern provinces allowed for this hyper-aggressive repeopling, turning it into a melting pot made up of one-part government redistricting, and two parts dynamite. And Nosaka was the only one holding it all together. But even he couldn't stop the ensuing race riots, lynchings and pogroms - they were becoming an all too common occurrence in the early 1950's. Iruka barely made it out alive when when hungry looking centrists firebombed his tenement building when finding out a right wing Zainichi politician lived in the floor above him.
This only hemmed the fact despite the uniform appearance, the DPRJ was a fractured mixture of different soviet enclaves spilling over into the other.
Vladivostok communists rubbed elbows with Akita syndicalists; Sendai Marxists clashed with Yamagata Maoists; Iwate anarcho-libertarians feuded with Hiraizumi Trotskyists. Nosaka needed a strong governmental arm to corral these different groups in the great Pandora's box knownas the Supreme Soviet of Presiding Soviet Provinces of Japan in Sapporo. And so in 1952, Konoha was tasked to safeguard the countryside whilst order was "instilled" (more like enforced) in the cities by ROOT.
Iruka leaned against the desk, arms folded, his gaze fixed on the smeared chalkboard as memories and history wove together in his mind.
The Democratic People's Republic of Japan had learned the hard way what it meant to fight for existence. In its early years, it was a country trying to find its soul, clawing for a semblance of identity amidst the ruins left by war. Too much had been taken, too little left to rebuild. And Northern Japan, always the poorer half, bore the worst of it. The extremes of deprivation, the constant struggle for survival—it was there that Joritsu had been pushed to its very limits.
Perhaps this is where the road to becoming a shinobi truly started.
Not in the training fields. Not in the academies. But in the cracks of a fractured nation, where the Revolution's lifeblood had seeped into the earth, staining it with the cost of an ideal that few truly understood.
Nosaka's utopia had been little more than a dream by the time factionalism began to eat away at its foundations. The streets echoed not just with the cries of the people but with the sounds of division—of arguments turned to feuds, of alliances fraying under the weight of scarcity. Goats bleated, pigs snorted, cows brayed with their udders near bursting for relief, while the government itself—supposedly the guiding force of the people—resembled an animal farm at war with itself.
Not even Nosaka's Treatises of Man could bridge the growing divide.
The fractures ran deep. They reached into the Presidium, where battle lines were drawn not with ink but with ideology, not with rhetoric but with whispers of betrayal. They spread into the fields, where peasants toiled with tools that should have been discarded long ago. Into the factories, where workers labored with materials so faulty they were barely functional. Into the harbors and piers, where shipments were delayed indefinitely, strangling trade and industry.
By 1954, the Chamber of Labor had had enough. They threatened a complete shutdown, their strikes sending a tremor through the Republic's fragile economy.
In response, the Nihon Kyōsan-tō turned to General Miyamoto Kenji of the Jinmin-gun, The People's Army, and handed him the authority to restore order. By any means necessary.
"The virulent and dastardly tactics of Southern imperialists to disrupt the works of The People," they called it. A convenient enemy. A convenient lie.
Some believed it. Others buried their heads in the sand, hoping that silence would shield them from the Intelligence Services.
Iruka was young then, focused on his own future—working his way up through Konoha's Ninja Academy, procuring his teaching license, navigating the treacherous waters of an era that demanded absolute loyalty. He was smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.
Unlike the First Hokage.
Lord Hashirama had seen a nation rise from the ashes, and he had tried to hold it together not through sheer will, but through love. Aikokushin. The Noble One professed this as the core of his beliefs, and Hashirama took it to heart. Love—patriotism—transcending color, creed, and nationality. Not force, not fear, but unity forged in fire, tempered into steel strong enough to bind the Republic together. He and Nosaka had labored tirelessly through the early half of the fifties, dreaming of a Konoha that could be more than just a tool of war, more than a mere extension of the Daimyō's will.
And yet, for all his strength, for all his ideals, Hashirama had been powerless to stop what came next.
The morning had been stiflingly hot. September of '56 hung thick in the air, the heat pressing against the village like an omen. Iruka could still recall the scratchy fabric of his uniform as he straightened it, preparing for his first day as Comrade-Proctor. The children were gathered outside in neat little lines, murmuring among themselves, their voices bright with the chatter of a world that had not yet shattered. Then, the castle's speakers crackled to life. A voice, nearly shouting, cut through the morning haze.
An emergency bulletin.
Official reports spoke of an attack. The train carrying the Shodai Hokage from Sendai had suffered a devastating ambush. Attack. The word was repeated over and over again, as though sheer repetition could force belief into those who still refused to accept it.
The nation trembled. Reprisals were threatened. Sapporo mobilized a task force to clear the wreckage, searching for survivors, for answers. Konoha locked down, its people holding their breath as Nidaime Hokage Tobirama was sworn in as acting leader. He stood before the assembly, his voice like steel, promising swift justice—but justice against whom? No enemy had claimed responsibility. No ransom had been demanded. Only silence followed in the wake of the disaster.
And Lord First's body was never recovered.
But there was something else. Painted in broad, defiant strokes across the ravine where the train had fallen. Red streaks marked the crumbling stone, defiling the wreckage with a message left unanswered.
Red clouds hovered everywhere, and the dawn that followed would haunt Konoha, setting the course for the next eight years.
Eight years of loyalty—like a starving dog, ribs showing, tongue lolling, made mad with hunger. Eight years of clenching its teeth around the scraps of a vision now tattered, waiting, desperate, longing to snap out at the world that had stolen what once felt certain. Eight years since Sanzo Nosaka walked off into exile at the death of his pupil, carrying the weight of a dream that had turned to ash. Seven since Tobirama Senju followed suit—not into exile, but into the afterlife, slipping away with the burden his brother had left behind. And six more living beneath the shadow of a tree gone dark, its roots twisted, its branches barren.
The leaves are gone now.
The fox has nowhere to hide.
Lost—where do they go?
Where does he, now that he's cornered himself in the confines of his classroom.
Iruka exhales through his nose and turns his back toward the window. Konoha's lights flicker like a heart beat on life support, generators working overtime to give off enough heat for the dozens of thatched roof houses. The world is moving forward, even when history threatens to pull them back into the Dark Ages. Where his comrade-in-arms, this shadow he could never quit, would prefer they'd all go. Information was easier when the people were ignorant, when they were destitute, and you hoarded it all to yourself. Anger is a better dish to feed then, and can sustain them for many days afterwards.
Her face betrays nothing but only the slightest bit of contempt - cold and clear, like ice falling from the awnings of so many abandoned temples here in the North. Years of slavish devotion to ROOT have easily shed away all her past annoyances to make her into this impenetrable wallflower. All she has is her name and that damning notepad of hers, filled d with nots of Noble One knows what; feels like she's jotted enough down to write a novella.
"Umino Taisho."
"All this time you've been following me around and that's the first time I've heard you actually use my name..." Iruka turns to face Samui; her visage is half-coated in the faint light of the Village, the other in a coiling black. Her full-bodied figure is kept secret by the shadows, but her hands move hastily; what could she possibly be writing down, he wonders. "I don't believe a report on me needs be so meticulous, comrade."
"The devil is in the details, Captain."
Her voice is measured, smooth—like water poured over a silver platter, controlled, deliberate. But beneath it, something lingers.
"The stakes are too high to leave things up to supposition."
"Supposition?" Iruka catches the disturbance in her voice, the almost imperceptible wobble, like the needle of a record player skipping. His eyes narrow. "I'm as easy a person to read as any."
"Everyone has secrets," she replies. "All it takes is patience—to sit, watch, study, and then dig a little deeper. Whether they know them or not, all wipp be revealed."
She steps forward, out of the shadows, her presence closing in like a whisper against his ear. The movement is slow, intimate, calculated. Samui betrays nothing in her expression. Nor does Iruka—but his hand twitches near his coat, itching for the cold weight of his Jing-san revolver. He doesn't draw, not yet. But his finger tenses, ready, because something is wrong.
Her face begins to change.
At first, he tells himself it's a trick of the light. A shift in the glow of the hanging lamps, a momentary illusion. But then her platinum hair darkens—gradually at first, then faster, deepening into a warm, ember-like hue, like a log half-caught in the fire. The blue ice of her eyes thaws, melts away, shifting, changing, until they gleam with golden amber, like sconces burning in the dark.
And when she speaks again, her voice is no longer soft, nor measured.
It is harsher, gravel-edged. Soon, it is no longer Samui standing before him. But a man. An officer more like - someone outranking him clearly judging by the medals on his chest. He had auburn hair, and amber eyes, and a black uniform. Iruka felt it first in his stomach—a sharp clenching, like a vice twisting deep in his gut. His breath caught, hand curling around the worn grip of his revolver.
The road to become a ninja was not an easy one.
One of the first things he tells his students upon entry into his class. The beginning always starts the same, with belief in the cause and loyalty to The Noble One's State as a whole. But to where that road will take them, to what end? That...Iruka wasn't keen on. Konoha had a whole cemetery denoting what that end might be. Or, it could be in this figure before him. A sharpened blade to be wielded for a singular purpose of domination, of subjugation, and of total victory.
And it made Iruka wonder—was nurturing the next generation of heroes worth sacrificing their souls?
Was it worth sacrificing Naruto?
Before his banishment, Hiruzen Sarutobi had given him one final order: watch over the boy. Why, and for what purpose, Iruka hadn't the gumption to ask. Even if he had, he doubted he would've gotten an answer. Hiruzen had a way of telling the truth without ever truly revealing anything—a skill honed over decades in power. A useful trick. A dangerous one. One that had made him invaluable in some circles, but utterly untrustworthy in others.
All Iruka had been given—all he had the privilege of knowing—was that Naruto needed to be kept safe.
Safe from what, Hiruzen never said.
And despite Iruka's loyalties, despite his better judgment, despite his relentless, near-slavish pursuit for the next rung on the ladder, he obeyed his former teacher. Because deep down he knew it was the right thing to do.
His reflexes may not be as fast Kakashi's, or Asuma's, or hell even Naruto's; but Iruka is still a young man, and his body remembers the rigors of his training. Twisting his body to the right, he pulls his sidearm. The trigger is warm, the hammer falls, and the shot echoes along The Academy's empty halls.