#Iruka is a tired sensei

[jacksgreysays]

(Not sure if I can qualify for another prompt after the last wonderful prompt fill but here goes:

The Academy was perfectly fine with Shikamaru’s imaginary friend Shikako, until she managed to ____.

Oh dona, there are so many things that can fill in that blank. SO MANY THINGS. And, I’ll be honest, a lot of what comes to my mind range from funny to alarming. But the on that I think is the most encompassing—without being too boring—is simply “get caught.” Because that opens up so many opportunities for what else she could have been doing before she got caught in such a way that also builds a dynamic between those who are in on it (ie, the Rookie Nine, maybe even the full Konoha Twelve since Team Gai IS only just one year older) and those who aren’t (presumably the teachers of the Academy) However, in order to narrow this fic down into something writable, I should figure what Shikako is doing before she gets caught… and, maybe this is just me, but I kinda like the idea of… now maybe this is too specific… but basically, Shikamaru’s imaginary friend Shikako, aka his literal sentient eldritch horror twin sister that lives in his shadow, just straight up eating Danzo. Just. How do you get rid of something? Eat it. Because, like… okay. My brain goes something like this:

“Hm,” says Shikamaru as they hide in the treetops from Iruka-sensei.

Normally, Shikamaru is content with being out of the classroom that, outside from telling them the plan needed to ditch and stay hidden, he stays pretty quiet either cloud watching or napping.

Chouji, in his spot next to Shikamaru and equally satisfied with just being outside, is the only one to hear him. “What is it?” He asks.

That gets Kiba and Naruto to perk up, starting to get bored after their flawless escape with minimal conflict.

“Shikako says she’s hungry.”

Good friend that he is, Chouji offers some of his chips. A tendril of Shikamaru’s shadow shakily takes one, wobbling even under that weight, but Shikako is also a good friend so she eats it.

Well. She tries, anyway. Shikamaru’s shadow curls around it, mimicking a chewing motion, but it remains unchanged.

After a moment, Shikamaru reports, “Shikako says thank you, but she might need to eat something else specifically?”

Naruto, ever curious asks, “What does a shadow even eat?”

Shikamaru shrugs. “She says she’ll know it when we find it.”

Kiba, and an Akamaru squirming with eagerness, declares, “Akamaru and I are the best and finding stuff. We’ll get it in no time.”

—

Iruka-sensei finds them before they find the ambiguous “it.”

To be fair, they were searching through the refrigerator in the teacher’s lounge, and their self assigned mission had carried them through to lunch time. So really it was their own fault.

Didn’t stop Naruto, Kiba, and Akamaru from yelling and howling up a storm as Iruka-sensei grabbed the two boys by the collars of their shirts. Mizuki-sensei at least just gestured his two charges forward, trusting that Shikamaru and Chouji would cooperate since they had been caught fair and square. And plus, it was lunch time.

Distracted as they were, none of the boys noticed Shikamaru’s shadow stretch itself to connect to Mizuki-sensei’s.

Without that context, none of them made the connection when, not even a minute later, Mizuki-sensei stumbled, nearly falling, before catching himself in an uncertain stance.

“You okay?” Iruka-sensei asked, caregiving nature winning over his desire to continue lecturing the boys.

Mizuki-sensei waved him off with a strained laugh, “Ha, I just felt a little tired—midday slump, probably.”

Kiba and Naruto, sensing weakness, re-aim their efforts from complaining to making fun of Mizuki-sensei’s age. It draws his ire, never mind that he tries to seem cooler than Iruka-sensei, but he musters a woozy, half-hearted defense at best.

Shikamaru glances at his shadow, darker and deeper than it was before.

Shikako isn’t as hungry anymore.

—

A/N: And then something something Ino and Sakura spot the boys questing for Shikako’s food and they also believe in/like Shikako anyway so they try to help out, Shino gets pulled in because they end up on Aburame territory and he’s holding his smiling baby sister and his untouchable vibes are way lowered, at some point they’re like… maybe Hinata can use her cool eyes to FIND what Shikako needs (and she’s stalking Naruto anyway so we might as well actively include her) and then Sasuke kind of feels left out ALTHOUGH… I may have a separate thing for how Sasuke gets pulled in. Anyway the kids try to figure out what she’s doing—she doesn’t eat chakra, she eats life energy, but only out of people that she wants to kill anyway and the amount she eats from them is maybe based on how much she wants to kill them? (she really does almost eat Kabuto to death the first time they encounter him lol)—and they’re like… well… we also don’t like the people Shikako doesn’t like anyway? Here’s where plot maybe comes in and maybe where Sasuke gets pulled in but basically if this is pre-Uchiha Massacre then there could be a day when Itachi goes to pick up the little Uchiha members from the Academy and Shikako is just like ??? DO I want to kill and eat him??? because he hasn’t done anything (YET) so it’s just like… the rest of the kids investigating into Sasuke to investigate into Itachi which then somehow Scooby Doo style gets them to Danzo and MAYBE he’s being a creeper and visiting the Academy to recruit future ROOT agents or MAYBE the Academy building is near the Hokage’s Tower (I think???) or Shisui and Itachi are BOTH picking up the various Uchiha Academy students and Danzo tries to use the opportunity to intimidate/threaten them both “subtly” and Shikako’s just like !!!!! FEAST MODE!!!! And fully just eldritch style swallows him whole in front of some Academy teachers :) And it’s not like Shikamaru can get in trouble because he’s BEEN telling the truth about his imaginary friend Shikako the whole time. And as far as they know it LOOKS like a Nara clan technique so they’re like… well… uh… maybe we should tell the Jounin Commander about this. And Shikaku’s just like… uh… Kasuga… what the fuck… And Kasuga turns to Sembei-obaasan and also asks what the fuck… And Sembei-obaasan has to search deep deep into the Nara oral tradition for what the fuck is going on And Shikako is just in Shikamaru’s shadow, totally pleased with herself. I’m not hungry anymore :)

#jacksgreyson #donapoetrypassion #ask box advent calendar #dreaming of sunshine #shikako nara #shikamaru nara #chouji akimichi #hungry sister

[ircn-mvn]

They were at the Rusty Kunai when the subject came up. Gai was getting more drinks and Kakashi considered making a break for it. He was tired and, despite the fact he kept looking at it, the bar’s door never opened on Iruka. Not that Kakashi only joined his friends to have an excuse to spend time with the teacher but… He sighed audibly and suddenly, all eyes were on him. Oh well.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Kurenai asked.

He shrugged.

“You look like a pining teenager,” Asuma commented.

“I have a hard time imagining him pining after anyone,” Kotetsu said. “No offense.”

Kakashi opened his mouth to tell him he was in fact not offended but Asuma was faster:

“He can. He has ever since he woke up from Itachi’s tsukuyomi -”

He stopped as Kurenai hit him not so discreetly. But it’s too late anyway. The others' interest was picked.

“What did you dream about?” Izumo asked.

His voice was barely above a whisper and he looked surprised by his own question afterward. He probably did not want to embarrass him despite his curiosity.

There was a long pause. 

He could guess what they were thinking: Torture. And sure, that was what happened at first. But once Itachi was gone and he was still out of it, the nightmare had turned into an actual dream… which was its own kind of torture. 

He shrugged again.

“It was a fairly banal tsukuyomi, I guess after…” Kakashi started. “People were alive.”

His father. His sensei. His friends… He saw them. He talked to them. But in the end, they weren’t what his mind - his heart - couldn’t let go of. He had grieved them. Now he was grieving something else altogether.

“Konoha was the same. I still worked.” Not so much, though. And definitely, no S-Class mission or anything that was supposed to last longer than a few days. Nothing that could potentially take him away from his family. “Took care of the kids. Cooked ‘cause Iruka was still terrible at -”

Oh.

What didn’t help as he sat frozen in his seat was knowing he was too good to have slipped up. He had wanted to talk about this. Or at least a part of him had wanted his friends to know what he had lost. What he was pining for.

“You had kids?” Izumo asked.

���With Iruka?” Kotetsu added.

Of course, that was when…

“Look who I found!” 

Gai was back with his arms full of new bottles and… Iruka.

There was no other option for Kakashi at that point than to flicker away.

#kakairu #kakashi x iruka #kakairu fanfiction #infinite tsukuyomi #this is kinda au i guess also happening around the time naruto is away #i just wanted to torture kakashi with his own dream life i guess #comments are welcome here or on discord

[virtualcarrot]

[KKIR] All it takes is one stumble

(Posted on AO3)

-

By the time Iruka's putting the finishing touches to the training ground, the sun's hanging low in the sky.

Some of his hair's come loose over the day's work, sweat-slick threads of it striking unevenly along his hairline. He wipes his brows with the back of his hand and--oh great, from the gritty feel of it, guess now he has dirt on his face. He huffs in tired amusement and looks over.

The spread of land around him looks as untouched as ever, with only his leftover supplies to give his presence away, along with the pale vest he cast off when he started heating up from the exertion. Once everything's picked up, it'll be like he was never here.

His spine protests with a crack when he draws himself up, the old scar tugging unpleasantly with the motion. He frames his lower back right under the hem of his mesh armor, pulls his shoulders wide open and arches in a stretch.

The relief is such that he groans with it.

"Ah!" A yelp sounds from over the treeline, followed by a thud.

A couple of startled pigeons take flight.

Iruka sighs. He was so very clear, when booking the training ground, to claim it as off limits while he makes use of it. Honestly, it's a wonder anyone even bothers with the schedules.

When he makes his way over, the great Hatake Kakashi, retired Rokudaime, looks up sheepishly at him from a sprawl in the bottom of the pit.

"Yo."

"I--How?!"

"Hazards of the road of life."

"Right."

"There are sirens on it. You know. Creatures of the sea. Very distracting ones."

"I'm sure..."

Apparently quite content to sit in the dirt, Kakashi gives no signs of getting up. Moreso, for a man already at ground-level, he looks strangely unsteady. His torso sways from side to side, like it's tempted to slump even further.

Iruka narrows his eyes. "What the hell did you do to be chakra deprived?"

"Aah, kocho-sensei... Let's take it as a lesson. I am but a humble, living reminder to warn your students against hubris."

"You were pushing the limits of your chakra pool, weren't you?"

"Never had time when I was Hokage. Did you know I can now use close to thirteen chidori ?"

"Make it twelve next time so you're still able to walk back."

At the edge of the pit, Iruka finds a protruding root. He ties a piece of rope to it and throws down the other end.

The softly sloped walls shouldn't be hard to climb back.

"Aaah, about that..."

Iruka groans. "You're hurt, aren't you?"

"Sprained my ankle," Kakashi says cheerfully. "Nice trap, by the way."

"You never should've--It's a trap for pre-genin," Iruka grumbles as he makes his way down.

There aren't a great many dignified ways of picking up a grown-ass man, yet Kakashi plain refuses to settle in a fireman's carry. Even on low chakra reserves, he's serious enough about struggling out of the hold that, short of employing actual force, Iruka has to retreat.

Hands on his hips, Iruka glares down at him, aggrieved. "Really, Kakashi? Nobody will care about your bony ass sticking up!"

"Naive of you to think so." Kakashi holds his arms up. "Come on, sensei, I'm sure you give great piggybacks."

"Oh for the love of--!" Iruka grouses. Yet he still crouches and presents his back to Kakashi.

For someone so worried about appearances, Kakashi clearly doesn't mind the ridiculous fumbling that follows. His legs have to grip Iruka's waist like a baby monkey's to leave Iruka's hands free ro grasp the rope, but they eventually figure it out.

Once they're out, Iruka catches Kakashi's thighs behind the knee and proceeds to make his careful way out of the trap field. It's unlike him to show himself in public looking so underdressed, but needs must. He'll come back for his supplies and vest later.

Kakashi shifts like he's inspecting the field before settling back.

"Nice thing you've got going on, here. Tell me about it," he says from on over, bony chin digging in the top of Iruka's head while he speaks.

Iruka frowns distractedly as he counts his steps before walking around what should be a mild exploding ink tag burried under a thin layer of dirt. "You know about it already."

There's something almost hug-like to the squeeze of Kakashi's arms over his shoulders.

"Hm. But you like talking about it."

Now Iruka's just embarrassed. "You should tell me to stop when I'm prattling at you, you know."

Kakashi sinks deeper against his back, the soft cloth of his mask rubbing gently against Iruka's temple that Kakashi has seen fit to touch his lower jaw to.

"...I'm doing the opposite, if you haven't noticed," he says, voice warm and sleepy.

Iruka sighs again, but this time it's fond. The walk back to the center of Konoha is made to the tale of his hopes for the Academy's new lesson plans and the room they give students for experimentation and discovery and specialization. It's been a longtime project of his, in this time of peace, to transform the ninja Academy into a place of learning instead of the soldier-popping machine it used to aspire to be.

Kakashi gives a few encouraging hums at appropriate times, and a few renewed not-quite-hugs-but-close-enough. Very close enough.

Just before they reach the first building of the village, Iruka gives into the urge to nuzzle Kakashi's arm and gently squeezes his thighs in response. Kakashi's breath stutters.

Then, little by little, he melts against Iruka's back with a sigh of contentment.

*

Sakura looks entirely unimpressed at their sight.

''What's he done now?" she asks, stepping aside to let them in.

Kakashi gives her a lazy wave of acknowledgement and droops into a dead weight across Iruka's back. It's too deliberate not to raise some warning bells.

''I fell head over heels,'' Kakashi drawls, the shape of a smirk sounding his words.

And, well... What a circumvoluted way of coming clear.

Iruka drops him unceremoniously on the couch and begins making meal plans for their evening together.

#my scrawl #kakairu #umino iruka #hatake kakashi/umino iruka #hatake kakashi #kkir #naruto

[anyon-else]

Will You Let Me Come Closer to You? (The Red Room pt.8) | You know that staying is a bad idea. Deep down, you know that it will only lead to more pain and loss. But for some reason, it's becoming harder and harder to tear yourself away from this new home. (Marvel AU) – spotify playlist | read on ao3

Pairings | Kakashi Hatake x Black Widow!Reader + Sakura Haruno, Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Kabuto Yakushi, Orochimaru (mentioned)

Warnings | fem!reader, hurt/comfort, mentions of scars, mentions of death, allusion to suicide, abuse

Word count | 5.6k

(previous chapter) | (next chapter) | (series masterlist)

"Alright, pack it up and get in."

Kakashi was too tired for this.

The night after your conversation, Kakashi had waited in vain for you to come out from his spare room. He wasn't too surprised when your door remained firmly shut long past the time when you usually joined him, but he was still slightly disappointed. When he woke up from a nightmare gasping for breath and looking around for nonexistent threats, his first thought was whether or not you'd kick him if he knocked on your door and asked that you come out and join him again.

When he saw you the next morning, you looked just as exhausted as he felt. However, he wasn't too tired to notice that you were purposefully avoiding his eyes.

"Sensei!" Naruto shouted from the door, arms full of bags that certainly hadn't been necessary to bring, "are we bringing the pups?"

"Iruka is staying here for a few weeks for a mission. He'll take care of them."

Naruto pouted and knelt down to an equally disappointed-looking Akino. Kakashi huffed; the kids spoiled his dogs too much. They were all getting too mushy to be guarding the house.

"We really can't stay for a few more days?" Sakura asked, throwing her bag into the back of the car. Her luggage was much lighter than what she used to bring when they came here on mini-getaways. Kakashi didn't want to think why that was, but he couldn't help but imagine how little she was likely permitted to have while in the Red Room.

"I'd like to get back to the compound. We're disconnected from SHIELD here, and I don't want to be out of the loop for too long."

He almost wished she'd fought him on the decision more, but her curt nod almost reminded him of a formal response to an order. He felt a headache coming on as he pictured that same response being given to Orochimaru.

Maybe he was overthinking things.

"You look terrible," Sasuke said, glaring at something behind Kakashi. He glanced at where you were slipping past Naruto with a bag slung over your shoulder and a deep scowl pointed at the ground. Sakura snapped at Sasuke to be nice, and Sasuke's answering shrug did little to make her lower her defenses. The boy gave you one last glance before climbing into the front seat of Kakashi's car.

"Nope," Kakashi shook his head, "back."

"Wha– why? For her?"

Sasuke pointed a disbelieving finger at you while you tried very hard to look like you weren't paying attention to the argument. You looked uncomfortable with his attention, and Kakashi took note of your uncharacteristic silence and stowed it away as something to ponder on later.

"Yes, for her. You children will be in the back."

Sasuke scowled at Kakashi, then glared past him at you. Kakashi waited beside the passenger door until his charge slipped out and trudged towards the backseat. He looked like the model of an angsty teenager; his arms were crossed tightly over his chest, and a deep scowl was directed at the trees in the distance. Kakashi felt his headache grow worse.

Sakura settled into the seat beside Sasuke with a quiet warning to be nice. He ignored her and propped his chin on his hand, turning even further towards his window.

"This isn't necessary," you muttered behind Kakashi. Stubbornness seemed to be a trait that you and Sakura shared, though he wondered if you had picked some of it up from the girl, "I can sit next to Sakura."

"It's alright. They're used to sitting back there."

"Still..."

For the first time since the night before, you met his gaze. You looked exhausted and beyond exasperated with the conflict. You participated in a stare-down with him for a moment, but climbed into the passenger seat with a grumble about how difficult he was being.

The drive was only a few hours, but it didn't take long for Naruto to fall asleep with his head resting on Sakura's shoulder. When the four of them went on road trips like this before Sakura was taken, she rarely tolerated Naruto's lack of physical boundaries. Kakashi was surprised when he glanced back and saw that she hadn't pushed him off like she used to. Now, she looked content to let the boy lean on her. Kakashi smiled behind his mask.

Sasuke, for all of his efforts to look the part of a brooding teenager, followed suit and fell asleep on Sakura's other shoulder. Kakashi almost asked if you would take a picture for him, but thought better of it when he noticed how tensely you were sitting in the passenger seat.

"How did you sleep?" he asked, ignoring your pointed glare.

"I slept fine."

"Mm. I'm glad to hear that."

"Right," you grumbled. The silence that followed was thick with tension, but he was patient. He could wait you out.

"You know, you almost had me fooled."

That wasn't what he was expecting.

"I don't know what you mean."

"This little game," you said venomously, spitting the words out like you couldn't stand to keep them in, "that you think you can play. Making me dependent on you. Acting like it's mutual. I've played it before, but it'll take more than that to manipulate me."

His hands tightened on the steering wheel, head spinning at the accusation. He thought you would've noticed the bags under his eyes that matched yours, though he supposed that you'd barely looked at him since the night before. Still, he'd hoped that you'd built at least a little bit of trust. At the very least, he thought you considered him an ally.

"That's not what I'm doing."

"I don't care, you know," you grumbled, leaving his words ignored, "if you want to use me. I don't care. But you could at least tell me what you want from me."

"I thought we went over this," Kakashi shook his head, "I'm not using you. I don't want to use you. I just want to help."

"And what makes you think I want your help, hm? I didn't ask for it. In fact, I never asked for you to bring me back in the first place. You took me. If you knew what was good for you, you'd drop me off at the next town and forget about me."

Kakashi glanced in the mirror to make sure the argument hadn't woken the kids, but you were staying conscious of your volume despite the anger in your voice.

"Is that what you want?"

The silence that followed gave him his answer. You were glaring at your lap, hands clenched hard around the phone he'd given you.

"Does it matter?" you muttered, "I keep going over it in my head, and every scenario I can think of ends with HYDRA finding me. Sakura doesn't want to acknowledge how dangerous it is for me to be here, but you know what the world is like. I know you do. And you know that it's inevitable that I leave. Whether it's on my own or with Orochimaru is up to me."

He remembered you saying that you would try to stay last night, and he wondered if it had been a lie or if you had changed your mind.

He wondered just how scared you were of letting yourself have a home.

"You know I shouldn't stay. The things I said last night...I wasn't thinking straight. It's dangerous for me to be here. I don't want to bring any more trouble to you and the kids."

"Is that what that was?" Kakashi chuckled, "trying to get me mad so I'd kick you out?"

Your silence was awfully telling. It was giving him more answers than your words did.

"Well, it's not easy to manipulate me either. And Sakura would probably just leave with you if I told you to go," Kakashi noted, glancing back at the girl. She had shifted and was resting her head on Sasuke, mouth open and drool hanging off her lip, "besides, she's just as dangerous, isn't she? HYDRA thinks you're dead, so she's the one they'll be looking for now."

He needed to find the right words. If he did, maybe some of the tension in your shoulders would drain out.

"If I overstepped last night," he said quietly, hoping that talking about such a vulnerable moment wouldn't shut you down, "I apologize."

You both paused when Naruto mumbled something incoherent. You went rigid at the interruption, and Kakashi was almost impressed that you were talking this freely in front of Naruto and Sasuke, even if they were asleep. Maybe you were improving more than he was giving you credit for.

"You touched me."

He closed his eyes. He hadn't meant to make you uncomfortable. It had taken him a long time to get used to the amount of affection that kids wanted, especially after being neglected for so long. But after so long taking care of them, it had almost become a natural instinct to comfort someone with touch.

"I did," he mumbled, suddenly embarrassed that he'd been so presumptuous. Of course you wouldn't want him touching you. Not after everything that Red Room had done to make you associate touch with pain, "I'm–"

"It was nice. It felt...kind."

It was a miracle that Kakashi didn't crash the car. This conversation was full of surprises.

"Orochimaru always saw kindness as weakness," you murmured, voice faraway, "but the Widows didn't always see it that way. When we were younger, before training got intense, we would try to support one another. Kindness didn't become rare until we started training for combat. I even had some friends when I was a kid."

He tried imagining a younger you, and found that he couldn't. He couldn't reconcile the hopelessness that you always seemed to be feeling with the innocence of childhood. Though he supposed that his own childhood hadn't exactly been filled with happy memories.

"Everyone who was kind to me ended up dead. A lot of them died at my hand. Orochimaru didn't want us to be friends. He wanted us to make each other stronger through competition. We were never taught the concept of mercy, so it was always kill or be killed. Only the strongest became Widows. Everyone else was eliminated.

"Kindness always got the people I cared about killed. The only person I was able to save from that fate was Sakura. If she had stayed in the Red Room, it wouldn't have mattered that she was a successful subject for his experiments, or that he could use her as leverage over SHIELD. He would've killed her one way or another. That's why I had to get her out before her...her graduation ceremony. She would've allowed herself to be killed because she understands kindness and mercy in a way that other Widows don't. I couldn't let that happen."

Kakashi didn't want to dwell on the darkness in your tone when you mentioned this "graduation ceremony," and he also didn't want to ask questions when you were already sharing so much with him.

"I can see now why she's so kind. I see that same kindness in you," you muttered, giving him a quick, embarrassed glance. "She always talked about you with so much hope. She said that you would come for her, and that she'd convince you to help me too. She told me that was just who you were.

"You're her hero. And I see why. You're kinder than most people," you said quietly. "I don't want to be the reason that you die."

Kakashi sat in the silence that followed your words and wondered how hard it would be to get his hands on Orochimaru. He wondered how many lives were being torn apart because of his twisted ideals. How many daughters were being given to a monster.

"You don't think you're kind?" he finally asked.

"No, I don't think so," you scoffed, "I've killed a lot of people. People who cared about me. I wouldn't call that kind."

He thought about Obito. He thought about Rin.

"I'm a Widow. That's what I was raised to be, and it's all I'll ever be. That's why I need to leave. Death follows Widows no matter how hard they try to escape it. I thought that I could try to stay and force myself to be something I'm not, but that would be selfish. If I stayed, I would just be hurting all of you in the long run."

"I've killed people, too."

You didn't look up. He took a deep breath.

"I killed my best friend."

The words felt like knives leaving his throat, but he wanted to meet you on even ground. He didn't want you to think that he was any better than you.

You stared at him, and he realized that this was one of the first things he'd shared with you about his life before he took the kids in. It was a life that he had fought desperately to leave behind for their sakes.

"You say I'm kind," he glanced at you. You were already looking at him, "and that you're not. But we've both hurt people that we care about."

Your face twisted, and he could tell that you wanted to argue, but you kept your lips sealed shut.

"It's hard to forgive ourselves for the things we've done. It took me a long time, and some days I feel like I'm back where I started. But then I look at them," he glanced at the backseat fondly, "and I think to myself, 'I found them when they were with people who resented them and hurt them, and they're still some of the best kids I've ever met. If I was able to raise them to hold on to their kindness despite all of the people who hurt them, there must be something good inside of me too.'"

He was having trouble keeping his eyes on the road. He wished he was having this conversation somewhere else, where he could look at you. To make sure that you were hearing what he was trying to say. That you believed the words were true.

"Sakura is kind because that's who she's always been. But she was able to hold onto that kindness in the Red Room because you protected it. That has to mean that there's kindness in you that's worth protecting too."

You shook your head, but he could tell that his words were starting to get through your seemingly impenetrable wall.

"You told me that you'd try," he said, "and I think you meant it."

This threat of HYDRA coming for you was only part of the reason you didn't want to stay. This possibility of a real life away from the Red Room was becoming too real. He could tell that the idea of being free terrified you.

"Just take it all one day at a time. If not for yourself, then for Sakura. Because if you leave, she'll just track you down and drag you back."

Your laugh was quieter this time, but it was real laughter. It was hope.

Arriving back at the compound was somehow more headache-inducing then leaving for it had been. Kakashi hadn't traveled with all of the kids together in four years, but they still acted like the same twelve-year-olds that he remembered with their constant bickering.

Once he got them all inside, he felt some of his tension bleeding away. He'd forgotten how exhausting trips like that could be with so many people jammed in one car.

"Hey. Widow."

Kakashi slumped in defeat at the sound of Sasuke's cold voice. You had been trailing Kakashi into the compound, aimlessly looking for something to do to pass the time, and Kakashi was hoping that you'd be able to sit with him and read Icha-Icha until you went back to sleep and rested for a while. At the very least, he'd been hoping that you would be able to readjust to the compound for a while before Sasuke started more conflicts.

Sasuke's tone was chilly, though that had nearly become a permanent part of his interactions with you. To Kakashi's relief, you looked unfazed by the title as you turned on your heel to face the boy.

"Follow me."

With no more explanation, Sasuke turned and began making his way further into the compound. Kakashi wanted to tell you that you didn't need to indulge in Sasuke's ambiguous request, but when he turned, you had already started following behind the boy.

"Maa, Sasuke," he sighed, "can't we have one day of rest?"

While you weren't sure what to expect when Sasuke stopped in front of a dark room and searched for a light switch, you weren't too surprised when the lights revealed a well-equipped gym.

"Come on," Sasuke nodded towards the middle of the gym where mats were spread out every few feet, all evenly spaced and well-worn. "we're sparring."

You glanced towards the door at Kakashi, who was watching the interaction with interest. Down the hall, Sakura and Naruto were following the sound of Sasuke's commands curiously.

"Sensei, what's going on?"

Sakura's face flushed with anger when Sasuke squared up in front of you. You could hear the disbelief in her tone, and you wished that Sasuke would at least try to be more civil for her sake, but you also understood his unrelenting suspicion.

He was looking at you so furiously, and you found it hard to believe that all of this anger was directed towards you. You vaguely remembered Kakashi mentioning that Sasuke had a brother that he was afraid of, and you wondered if that's who the boy was thinking about right now. Perhaps your intrusion into his life was bringing back unpleasant memories. Or maybe it was the threat that you posed to his family.

When you stepped onto the mat, his attack was immediate. It wasn't the smartest move, but he was likely running on pure emotion. All of his anger at you was finally spilling over, and it was making him sloppy.

Even so, he was a good fighter. His movements were fluid, and he was able to surprise you more than once.

But he was outmatched. You'd been raised to win matches like this.

The fight wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if you'd put your all into it, but it still ended with Sasuke's chest pinned under your knee. He was panting, staring up at you in fury.

"Why did I lose?" he panted after a moment.

You blinked at him, staying crouched at his side when he made no move to stand.

"With more training, you'll improve–"

"No," he snapped, "what did I do wrong? Tell me what I need to do to win."

The kid was determined, you'd give him that. You stood and held a hand out, feeling a small sense of victory when he took it with only a few seconds of hesitation.

"You were letting your emotions guide your actions. While that can be useful in battles of strength, Widows specialize in stealth and agility. You need to be able to focus on every move I make if you want to win. Find the pattern to your opponent's movements. There will always be one. Once you've done that, you can try to exploit it. But you won't be able to find it if you're too focused on being angry."

"Okay," Sasuke gave a short nod and raised his fists, "again."

It took seven more rounds of this for the cycle to break. Naruto had brought a deck of cards to the gym from his room, and he, Sakura, and Kakashi were playing while keeping an eye on you and Sasuke.

"Stop going easy on me," Sasuke growled when you pinned him to the ground for the eighth time. He shoved you away and stood on his own, running a frustrated hand through his hair.

"Alright," you said, "I won't."

Sakura stood at your words and approached the mats nervously, but Sasuke just grinned.

It took about a quarter of the time for you to take him down, but he didn't seem as upset by the outcome this time. In fact, he seemed rather satisfied that you were using your full strength.

"You need to be more flexible with your strategies," you told him when he looked at you expectantly from the floor. "The ones you've developed are good, and they'll serve you well with many opponents, but not with Widows. Fighting elites like the ones trained in the Red Room is like a game of chess. No matter how clever you think your techniques are, once they catch on to the way you move, it becomes about three times easier for them to win. And it won't take long for them to figure you out.

"It's not easy to strategize and fight at the same time, so you'll need to practice until you can predict your opponent's movements based on different factors like where their weight is shifted and what their previous move was. No matter how well-trained someone is, everyone has certain patterns that they fall back on during a fight. When you find it, you have to take advantage. The second you see that your opponent has begun taking on a recognizable form of attack, you can react quickly and catch them off guard."

Sasuke nodded once, then got to his feet again, though he was moving slower now. You hadn't looked at the time since you'd begun, but it had probably been at least an hour.

"I'm done for the day," you waved him off when he raised his fists again, "but you're already improving. You're a quick learner."

"You can keep going," Sasuke bit out, frozen to his spot on the map, "I know you can. You've barely broken a sweat."

"Sasuke–"

You met Sakura's eyes and gave her a subtle shake of your head. Whatever the reason for Sasuke's unrelenting suspicion of you for the past two months, it likely had to do with whatever was going on in his head right now.

When you saw Kakashi looking at you, you tried to read what he was thinking, but he was giving nothing away.

"I didn't say I couldn't," you turned around with a shrug that was likely the cause of his irritated huff, "I just don't want to."

"I don't care," Sasuke spit. "We're going again."

"Why are you so desperate?"

You turned back on your heel and tilted your head at the boy. He looked taken aback, probably too exhausted to recognize the real answers that you were trying to get from him. The way you were attempting to manipulate the boy almost made you feel like Orochimaru. You cut through the thought before you could ponder on it further.

"I'm not desperate. I want to get stronger."

"You've clearly exhausted yourself. Overexerting your muscles isn't good for you, you know."

"No," Sasuke growled. "I haven't. I want to go again."

"Not today," you shook your head, "not unless you can give me a good reason why I should."

"Because we're letting you stay here even though you're more trouble than you're worth," he said with a glare. You ignored the voice in the back of your head telling you that he was right and advanced on him further.

"No, Kakashi's letting me stay here. If it were up to you, I'd have been gone four weeks ago. Try again."

Sasuke was making no efforts to hide how angry he was now, abandoning the progress he'd made during your spars. Now he looked like he wanted to fight you outside of a controlled environment, without Kakashi standing by ready to stop him. You wondered once again if it was really you he was seeing, or if there was someone else he wanted to take his anger out on.

"I need to understand how you were able to keep Sakura safe and get her out when I couldn't even stop her from getting taken," he finally said, though he didn't look happy admitting it to you, "I need to make sure I'm strong enough to beat someone like you. If they come here to hurt the people I care about, I have to be strong enough to stop them."

He was taking on quite a bit on his own, but you knew that you didn't have much room to speak on that issue. Sakura was the only person you'd ever felt that fierce protection for, but you understood his frustration to an extent. At the very least, you understood failure. You understood wanting to make up for failure.

But from where you stood, it looked a lot like Sasuke was punishing himself for his inability to keep Sakura safe.

"Alright," you bent your knees, positioning yourself in front of Sasuke like you each time before in the past hour. His eyes widened before he followed suit, triumphant smirk growing on his lips, "if you win, we'll keep going for as long as you want. We can even pick back up tomorrow if you're not satisfied. But if I take you down first, we stop, and you stop looking at me like I'm the enemy. Deal?"

"Tch. Fine."

This match was admittedly a bit harder that the ones before. While you'd told Sasuke that emotion wasn't the way to win against a Widow, the fury behind his attacks wasn't something to be taken lightly. However, they were sloppily dealt, and his openings were easy to find.

"Alright, then," you said when he was staring up at you from the ground, "that means we're done."

Sasuke looked a little dazed after hitting his head against the mat so many times, but he got to his feet and glanced at you tiredly. He took your outstretched hand with little thought, likely letting himself succumb to exhaustion now that he'd finished sparring for the day. When he began to pull away, you tightened your grip on his hand and pulled him forward so that he was facing you. Your eyes were hard as you stared at him, making sure he wasn't too tired to keep from hearing what you needed to say to him.

"I don't know who you're so angry with," you said lowly, grip tight on his hand, "but you're wasting your energy by placing that anger on me. And if you wanted to get stronger, you could've just asked for my help. A Widow is not a bad ally to have."

He stared at you for a long moment. Then he nodded once and dropped your hand.

You took it for what it was. An acceptance of your olive branch. At the very least, it was one less thing keeping you from staying.

Sasuke left looking significantly calmer than he had when he entered. Following him was a slightly-less angry Sakura and a nervous-looking Naruto who was trying to mediate the argument between the two. You watched them go with a small smile. Maybe now Sasuke could start focusing all of that furious energy where it would be helpful.

It wouldn't hurt to open up to his friends, either.

"Am I...staying in the same room as before?"

You were still looking down the empty hall, watching the kids disappear from view in an effort to keep from looking at Kakashi.

"If you want to," he shrugged, "I don't sleep on the couch here. It's not as cozy."

You didn't want to acknowledge the fear that rushed through you at the idea of spending an indefinite number of days haunted with nightmares, but you also didn't want to admit that being around Kakashi helped so much.

"That's okay," you shrugged, "I wasn't expecting you to."

You cringed at how obvious the lie was.

"Thank you for letting me stay," you turned to him, looking anywhere but his eyes. You felt something sinking in your stomach as you stepped farther away from Kakashi and closer to your nightmares, but you ignored it. You'd spent most of your life sleeping alone. You weren't so weak now that you couldn't handle it anymore.

There was no guarantee that you would always have Kakashi to help you sleep at night. Keeping yourself from becoming dependent on him would only help you in the long run.

Despite the attempts you were making at spinning your solitude into something positive, your fear rocked you to sleep and met you again in your nightmares.

"What are you waiting for?"

"Don't make me hurt her. Please."

"If you won't end it quickly," Kabuto smiled cruelly and pulled a knife from its sheath at his side, "I'll make sure she suffers."

Sakura looked more like a ghost than a person as she sat in front of you, but she was still alive. For now, she was still breathing.

The gun in your hand only had one bullet left. A bullet that was meant for her.

"I'll take her place," you sobbed, falling at Kabuto's feet. The look of disgust on his face was familiar and gut-wrenching. Shame pooled in your stomach.

"You're a traitor," he spat, taking your jaw in one hand and pulling you to your feet, "and this is your penance. We don't need her, so to prove your loyalty, you will take care of the mess that you created."

"Anything else," you begged, "I'll do anything you want, just let her go."

"There's nothing else he wants," Kabuto grinned, cruel and sharp, "you betrayed him after everything he did for you. You threw his kindness away. And for what? Some pathetic attempt at companionship?"

You let out a sob when Kabuto covered your hand with his and curled your fingers tightly around the gun.

"He wants to see you suffer for what you've done," Kabuto grinned wickedly. The hand that he reached towards you almost seemed gentle as it followed the path of your tears down your cheek, but the painless motion ended when he wrapped his fingers around your throat and led you forward. He stopped you when you were back in front of Sakura and dug his nails into the skin of your neck.

"This is what you are," he said quietly, guiding your arm until the gun was pointed at Sakura. She didn't move. She didn't even blink. She just stared at you with the same, empty eyes that you'd seen when she was under Orochimaru's control. Or what you thought was his control.

"You should be proud," his whisper was almost gentle as he covered your hand with his own and turned the safety off with a click, "to serve Orochimaru. He gives you purpose. Show your gratitude."

His hand left yours, but his voice still lingered at your side.

"Don't deny your nature. If you do this, he will allow you back into the Red Room. He will understand that you were simply being led down the wrong path. Correct your mistakes here, and you can come home."

Home. You wanted to be home more than anything.

"Do what you were made for."

The crack of the bullet hitting its target felt like a warm welcome. It felt like a second chance at fulfilling the only purpose you'd ever known.

You woke drenched in sweat and heaving for air. Tears were dried on your face, and you scrubbed at them to rid yourself of the feeling of the salt water pulling at your skin. It felt the same as it had in the dream. You thought you could still feel Kabuto brushing the tears away.

It wasn't a kind gesture. Not like Kakashi's gentle touch had been.

You hadn't fully regained awareness of your surroundings when you stood and stumbled towards your door. You followed the familiar path that you'd taken to Kakashi room before the mission, but stopped with a jolt of nerves as you wondered why you were seeking him out.

What were you doing here? Looking for comfort? Only a couple of months away from the Red Room, and already you couldn't handle sleeping alone.

However, for the first time, your pride was outmatched by your fear. It was consuming you.

You didn't want to be alone.

You knocked quietly on his door. If he had been asleep, it might've been too quiet for him to hear. You almost hoped that he wouldn't open it. At the very least, it would save you from having to explain yourself.

When he did, you were surprised that you felt relief instead of the expected disappointment.

He also looked different than usual.

"You...aren't wearing your mask."

You should've thought of something to say. You probably looked like an idiot, standing at his door and wondering why he would take his mask off to sleep.

"No, I'm not," he said with a small smile. He rubbed a hand over his face, covering most of the skin that was usually hidden by his mask. He felt naked without it, especially when you were looking at him so intently. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh. Yes, it's fine. Sorry to bother you."

The tear tracks on your face told him otherwise. He took your hand to stop you from turning around, noting the way your shoulders went rigid at his touch.

"Do you want to come in?"

No.

You did not want to come in. You wanted to go back to your room. You didn't even know what you were doing here.

You could deal with a few nightmares on your own.

You were stronger than this. Stronger than some fear-driven need to be near another person while you slept.

Nightmares were for children.

You were not raised to be weak.

But...

You were tired. You were so, so tired.

"Yes."

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Author's note | thank you for reading! i'm in the middle of finals right now, but i've had this chapter written for a while, and i had a chunk of time to edit. i have most of the next chapter written as well, so hopefully i can keep getting chapters published regularly. my finals are over on the 15th, so there won't be too long of a wait even if i can't write much in the next week.

anyways, let me know what you guys think of this chapter! i was a bit conflicted about the beginning argument while i was writing it, and it went through significant edits, but i feel like it fits with the readers transition into life with kakashi and the others. don't get used to the hurt/comfort and fluff though, shit hasn't hit the fan yet :) see y'all in the next chapter, and don't forget to leave me some love!

title is from "Fragile" by Laufey

#kakashi #kakashi x reader #kakashi x you #kakashi x y/n #kakashi imagine #kakashi hatake #kakashi hatake x reader #kakashi hatake x you #kakashi hatake x y/n #kakashi hatake imagine #naruto #trr #emwrites

[bougiebutchbitch]

Okay so I saw this summary from a fic from another fandom, and just couldn't help but think of obikaka:

“Before you scream, I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you that I have the rest of your family tied up in the other room, so maybe don’t.” The man’s voice had him blinking awake. Which was concerning. There were actually a number of concerning things right now. Not least of which being the stranger in black jeans and hoodie sitting beside his bed staring at him with a knife in his hand. Then, of course, his brain caught up to what was said.

“I live alone,” he mumbled, dumbly.

The man frown and his eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. “You live a- then who were all those people walking around your apartment?”

So Kakashi waking up to Obito threatening him, having tyed up other Ninja trying to kidnap or hurt Kakashi. Or maybe it's just his cute little gening that broke in to sleep at his place.

oh my god khjdsdgfzdfhjsdftkjfdtkj

Okay but imagine Obito stalking Kakashi on his off days, sort-of like in canon. He gets off on seeing how fucked up his life is, but also desperately doesn’t want him to die (because he wants Kakashi to see the new world he's building, and even if a tiny part thinks Kakashi deserves this suffering, he knows deep down it isn't his fault).

One night he's Tobi-ing around Kakashi's crappy little studio in the middle of the night, as you do when you're an undercover criminal boss and you're bored of hanging out with your loco evil flatmates. Kakashi's flat-out, exhausted after a solo S-rank, sleeping it off. He's sleeping so heavily he doesn't even notice the door to his appartment swing open.

What’s this? An assassin? Someone dares think they can take Kakashi from him?

Anyway, that's how Obito, three years too early, long before he ever intended to make an appearance, winds up pinning Konoha's jinchuuriki to the floor with a knife at his throat.

Kakashi lurches awake at Naruto's scream. Then EVERYTHING dissolves into chaos, because SENSEI DO YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND OVER? YOU DIDN'T TELL ME???? I COULDN'T SLEEP AGAIN SO I CAME OVER LIKE YOU SAID I COULD BUT NOW THERE'S A RANDOM DUDE IN YOUR BEDROOM????

Meanwhile Kakashi is freaking the everloving FUCK out because who is this man and why is he in his house and how did he get past his wards and oh god there is a BLADE at Naruto's NECK

He's slowly drawing his own emergency under-the-pillow kunai, glare fixed on the intruder. "Don't worry, Naruto. I won't let him hurt you."

And Obito, panicking to hell and back, blurts in Tobi's voice: "Haha why would Tobi hurt him? Sorry Naruto, Tobi didn't realise it was you!" He stands up and tucks his knife away, tilting his mask like he's smiling behind it (he absolutely is not.) "Naruto's right! Tobi is Kakashi-kun's boyfriend!"

Naruto immediately is all smiles, hopping to his feet and sizing Tobi up. "Oh, awesome! Hey, nice to meet you! Kakashi-Sensei's a weird old loser, but it's good that someone likes him, y'know?"

Meanwhile Kakashi is screaming get the fuck away from this creep in his head, but Tobi's body-language has switched to entirely non-threatening, and right now, his tired brain can only process that Naruto is here and this stranger is obviously dangerous. So long as he's not actively looking to hurt Naruto, that's a good thing.

"Yeah," he says, staring the guy down. "He's my boyfriend. And sorry, Naruto, but we'd like some privacy." He needs the kid out of here and far away, now. "Can you go to Gai's house? Or Iruka's?" He knows neither of them will complain about a little blonde ball of hyperactivity showing up in the middle of the night. At least, not much.

"Sure, sure!" Naruto shoots him a cheesy wink. "Have fun with your boyfriend, Sensei."

Then he's gone, ambling out the door like he didn't almost get his throat slit. He'll tell the others and they'll tell everyone, and probably tease Kakashi about this for the rest of forever, but that's the least of his worries. As soon as the door shuts behind Naruto, the kunai is out, brandished on a clear throwing line to the mystery man's vitals.

"Who," growls Kakashi, "the fuck, are you."

To which Obito (still panicking, but unable to resist the opportunity to fuck with him) lets just a teeny hint of his own deep, menacing voice infiltrate Tobi's tone, as he clasps his hands and wiggles back and forth. "Oh, but didn't you already say to Naruto, Kakashi-kun? Tobi's your boyfriend!"

He vanishes into kamui, the kunai striking the wall where he just stood.

And... scene.

#obikaka #kakaobi #kakashi #obito #naruto #my fic #bbb creates

[kiljoius-writes]

Downswing

Rating: General

Ao3 | FFN

Summary: Ibiki tells him, "Your feelings don't matter." Iruka thinks about it all night.

Iruka grapples with his identity as a sensei as his kids prepare to graduate.

Iruka focused genfic one shot

Word Count: 2.3k

Written for my writing friend, @elreinodelpurgatorio! Check out their stuff, too <3

The day Iruka witnessed Hinata give Naruto a bento box with the reddest face known to man, he could already feel himself getting tired.

Sakura and Ino were always menaces. He had no issue fielding them and their fawning over Sasuke. It had been a long-standing thing at this point. But once he saw his other students exhibiting feelings for one another, he knew his peace would be limited.

Peace for Iruka was a quiet afternoon with a book, under the sun, but covered by a tree, by a lake. Quiet to contrast the chaos of looking after dozens of preteens all day every day.

Don’t mistake him. He loves his job, there’s a reason he chose it. Watching a little genin perfect their shadow clone, hit the center of a target with their kunai, find out their chakra nature – it’s what he lives for. To see them grow up and be capable little shinobi. Able to defend themselves, the people they care about, and their village. He doesn’t like to think about the horrors that might await them in their future, just hopes that he can impart some semblance of normalcy and care.

But watching horribly awkward 12- and 13-year-olds fumble about their emotions and hormones is both amusing and painful.

It starts with Ino loudly making fun of Shikamaru’s nose and her crying when he calls her Sakura’s signature insult, “pig.” Moves to Kiba trying to sit a little closer to Ino on some days. Naruto tries to give Sakura a cherry blossom, Hinata scaredly leaves a bento on Naruto’s desk, and Sasuke “hangs out” by a tree while he watches Hinata train.

The patterns accumulate, become more elaborate as they go through the months. He’s known these damn kids for years, he’s not ready for the drama. Wants them to keep being stupid little weirdos who make up silly games with their wooden kunai, tell each other jokes that make zero sense, pretend like they have ancient powers that make them immune to being ‘it’ during tag. That’s what he misses most, the peace of nonsense between children.

No, they’re going through weird hormonal transitions and Iruka wishes he could fast forward a year or two.

A meeting in the Hokage tower of available chūnin and jōnin doesn’t help.

A senior jōnin stands at the front of the room, addressing them all about a potential threat that looms over Konoha. Iruka listens carefully, knowing that he needs to pay special attention with the genin exams coming up. The last thing he wants is to promote a bunch of hormonal kids right before a potential war. He’ll hold them all back if he has to, he doesn’t want what happened to his parents to befall these kids. As annoying as they are, they hold a special place in his squishy heart.

It doesn’t seem too terribly serious, so Iruka keeps the information filed away. Makes sure it’s something to keep an eye on and check in about but stays calm. He’ll talk to his kids tomorrow about preparedness and knowing when to move to the defensive. For now, he just keeps those notes tucked in his pocket and breathes a sigh of relief that it isn’t more serious than he initially thought.

In the area outside of the meeting around, there are refreshments. He spots Asuma and Aoba where the gyoza is, Kakashi where the fresh fruit is, and Ibiki and Anko where the drinks are, and decides he can stick around for a bit. He comes up beside Kakashi to grab a napkin to spoon melon into, smiling at him.

“Kakashi,” Iruka acknowledges him first, moving down to the mango. “Ready for your team?”

“Ready as ever,” Kakashi responds, holding the napkin to his chest. “See what we have this year.”

“I’m sure you’ll be impressed.”

Iruka doesn’t like to blow smoke, but he likes the batch he has. Naruto was the hardest one for him, but in the end, he really liked the kid. It’s been a rough time, especially considering the ‘beginning’ of their relationship, but Naruto demonstrated to Iruka that he’s serious. And honestly, he might just hold a soft spot for the poor kid at this point. Sure, little Iruka thought it would be easier on everyone if someone housing a monster, specifically a monster that killed his parents, just….be gone. It took a lot of time for Iruka to reconcile his love of kids and teaching and his hate of the tailed beast that took his parents from him. Made him an orphan as a kid.

Naruto was an orphan from his first few hours of life and housed that same beast.

Naruto irritates Iruka and makes him laugh. Makes him feel sad, angry, happy, and love.

He’s just a kid.

They all are. Iruka reminds himself of this every day. It’s why he does what he does. They’re just kids.

They need someone to guide them, help them, listen to their snotty fits and philosophical questions. His job is their success. A teacher has to love their kids, and he thinks he does.

“Had enough of the runts?”

Anko is the first to crush his worldview at all times, today is no different. She strolls up with some sort of energy drink in hand alongside Ibiki, who stays quiet, for now.

“Not at all,” Iruka responds, looking away as he piles a small bowl with various fruits. “Opposite, even.”

“Yeah, right!” Anko snorts, and soon, the other jōnin are converging on him. Kakashi is smirking under that mask, Asuma and Aoba meander over, and Kurenai and Genma cross from the other side, too, curious as to what’s going on.

“Little hellhounds you’re responsible for,” Aoba comments, popping a piece of gyoza in his maw. Iruka sighs, regretting his decisions as he often does.

“Leave him alone,” Asuma says, scratching at his chest with his lighter in hand, though no cigarette in his mouth. “He’s got it hard enough.”

“They’re cuties,” Kurenai says, arms crossed behind her back while Genma chews a needle. “I’m excited for whoever you put together for my team.”

“Excitement is definitely the wrong emotion.” Genma rolls his eyes, then looks away, clicks his tongue. Just then, a little discussion breaks out between the jōnin over what teams will be formed and who will get what. The jōnin sensei were decided a few months ago, and it’s standard for them to be itching to see who they’ll be assigned.

Iruka finds it all to be noise that hurts his brain. A simple conversation with Kakashi has turned into an interrogation, turned to a gossip fest about his students.

Genin and chūnin exams were the extent of excitement in the village these days. Without attacks or wars or good movies, it was all about the kids who would be the next killing machines.

Iruka tries not to think about his role in that. Tries to think of the good he does. With several other jōnin berating him for contributing to a class of annoying preteens, he finds it hard to focus on their good.

“Your feelings don’t matter,” Ibiki tells Iruka in this flat tone that’s not picked up on by most of the group, only by Aoba and Kakashi, who both look up in surprise. It’s all Ibiki says before setting his half-full cup on the table and taking off for good.

“What d’you think he meant by that?” Aoba asks, stepping to Iruka’s side. Anko notices his abandoned drink and snatches it up.

Iruka thinks about it all night.

“You don’t think I’m being selfish, do you?”

Kakashi perks an eyebrow at his dubious book but doesn’t look up. Iruka’s hunched over, forearms on his knees, restless legs. When he doesn’t respond, Iruka just sighs, pulls at his fatigues to straighten them out.

It’s a Sunday, a few weeks from genin promotion, and Iruka still thinks of the low blow Ibiki dished out to him. Thought about marching into interrogation to ask him just what the hell he meant, why it would ever seem like he was making things about himself. Iruka thinks he’s selfless, to be totally honest.

“I do this job because I care about those kids,” Iruka says, rubbing the pads of his fingers into his forehead. “I know my feelings don’t matter. I’ve never made this job about me.”

Kakashi turns a page but remains silent. It irritates Iruka.

“I mean, I have lost my temper a couple of times. Mostly with Naruto.” Iruka sighs, rubbing his hands over his face. “It’s because I care about them so much. They think becoming ninja, it’s fun. It’s not supposed to be fun.”

Iruka looks up at the sound of Kakashi’s book shutting, watches him readjust his mask while staring out into the distance. Finally, he actually says something. “Your feelings don’t matter.”

Jaw dropped, Iruka reels backward. “That’s really funny coming from you, Hatake.”

“You make it about you and what you’re feeling.” It’s like a dagger to his back hearing something like this from Kakashi of all people. “What are the runts feeling?”

“Excited?” Iruka says with an unsure tone. “Over-confident? Weirdly emotional.” Kakashi raises an eyebrow, rests his book on his chest as he sinks into the seat. He takes it as a sign to keep going. “Hormonal, that’s for sure.” He slumps over, hangs his head. “Curious but some of them are nervous. I’m not ready for them to leave yet.”

Kakashi folds his hands behind his neck. “Jobs not about what you want. Ibiki was right. Your feelings don’t matter.”

A perfect way to enter the new week, with both Ibiki and Kakashi nonchalantly telling him he’s worthless.

It makes him reflect on what all this means; what he’s doing all this for.

If called, Iruka has no doubt he’d be ready and willing to step it up for this village his parents died for. But there’s also a reason he didn’t progress beyond chūnin. This village is his home, and he thinks he services it best when he’s here, in his home.

But…

Is he really just ushering in the newest generation of killing machines?

Is that what his sensei thought of him? What they thought of Hayate, Yugao, and Shisui when they graduated together? That he and they’d be ripe for training to maw their way through any threat, big or small? It’s hard to think he’d be lying if he said he never thought about his kids going into that world and feeling downright frightened.

But if that’s selfish, then maybe he’s selfish. There’s no way someone can tell him he’s wrong for loving those kids.

“Iruka-sensei.”

Torn from the paperwork that sits in front of him, his eyes lift to meet the lightness of his Hyūga girl. One of the ones he worries most for, blinking at him with a sheepish smile. He holds back an exasperated sigh and thinks back to Ibiki and Kakashi. His feelings don’t matter. When it comes to these kids; their feelings matter. He gives her a lopsided smile, nodding at her to continue. “Hi, Hinata.”

“Do you think maybe, ehm, today, w-we could – “ Iruka blinks at her poking fingers, then back up at her. He sits up completely now, rolls his chair towards her to give her his full attention. She smiles a little, shoving her hands to her sides. “M-maybe this week we could have an off d-day? T-to let everyone relax…”

Iruka tilts his head, pondering the proposition.

Of all the kids, besides maybe Sasuke, Hinata was the last he ever once expected to ask for a break.

Must be serious.

Iruka pulls on his last week of being a genin.

Train, training, training.

“I-I’m sorry,” Hinata immediately begins which makes him wave his hand at her, more dismissively than he means to me. He pulls the hand down and turns to her.

“That sounds really nice,” he says it with all the sincerity he can muster. She looks at him curiously, clearly unsure as to whether to trust him. He clasps his hands together, leans forward. “Wednesday, day before the exams. Let’s go to the lake.”

“The lake,” she repeats, eyes unblinking at him. “I like the lake.”

“Me too,” he tells her, smiling a little wider now.

“I-I think the others do, too.”

Iruka feels a little warmer inside.

They do the usual preparations for the week without Iruka telling the rest of the class of the planned break. Makes it all the better on Wednesday, when tired eyes and exasperated sighs greet him, and he tells them to put their packs back on. They’re going to the lake.

With full sun, but plenty of canopy shade. With books and lunches and kunai and notes and bathing gear and sugary sweet drinks.

Iruka’s happy for his students to rush home to dress for the occasion, and he’s in comfortable shorts and a t-shirt when they arrive.

As he settles against the tree, he looks at the class. His kids that he’s loved for a long time. Trains his eye on a certain few, the ones he worked the hardest for. Sees them jump into the lake in bathing suits, scream and yell and laugh. Splash and push each other’s faces into the water. Kick their feet, make up games like they're just the kids they're meant to be. Call each other stupid and cute and crazy. Promise each other things won't change after this.

His chest feels warm.

Iruka pulls his arms behind his head and admires the generation of students he helped usher in.

He’s selfish, he realizes.

These are his kids.

Seeing them succeed is all he’s wanted in his adult life.

A sigh accompanied by shrieks and laughter and snorts and splashes and love surrounds him.

Umino Iruka is alright with being selfish.

#fanfic #naruto fanfic #iruka fanfic #iruka umino #umino iruka #iruka #family feels #realistic view on child ninja soldiers

[fightaers]

naruto examines the water can handed to him by iruka. narrowing his eyes, he looks up. "...so you're sayin' i just gotta water all these plants as punishment?" so weird, really weird. probably the least harsh consequences he's ever been given. honestly...how is this punishment? he ain't gunna say no, because he can totally finish this quickly and go do some training!

"i'll be done before ya can blink!" he declares with a wild grin. hugging the water can to his chest, naruto walks over to the closest tap to begin filling it. not thinking to stay to hear if there's more to this chore.

❛ no, wait — ! ❜ but the boy's already off, and whatever iruka has meant to say transfers itself into a large breath of sigh.

in all honesty, iruka knows that there might be objection about letting naruto water the small garden the academy is growing — not that there are any proper educational value to the garden that it should be earning any wrath from any member of the academy faculty considering it's more decorative than anything. which only further supports iruka's future argument that keeping naruto busy with watering the wild flowers and some poorly-maintained vegetation wouldn't be an issue at all.

as much of headache that would surely bring him, iruka lets the thought slides and re-focuses instead on the kid. naruto is... as enthusiastic as ever, although iruka wonders whether the prospect of a lighter punishment is what's driving that eagerness or is it the very fact that an adult has finally properly paid attention to him that does it. the thought alone shakes iruka enough that whatever anger he's held from the blonde's latest prank ebbs away.

or maybe, like mizuku'd always say, that's just iruka being easy. these days, tired enough, iruka barely has any energy to discern it.

whatever it is, he knows in truth he couldn't fully be mad at naruto long. he's— he's just a kid, after all. a little clumsy and a whole lot of trouble, sure, but he's... he's just lonely, isn't he ? and iruka had told the third before that that might lie the true issue, although all the third had responded iruka with was a long, thoughtful hum. so? he'd asked iruka then. what will you do, iruka-kun?

what will he do, iruka thinks, clenching his firsts by his side and clenching his jaw from the building frustration, before he concludes, in a voice suspiciously similar to his mother's, and determines: what he can.

so iruka marches forward – and this time it's not to yell. he bends forward instead, catches the watering pot naruto's been tilting over to let the water run over a particular flower, and as the blonde looks up, the academy sensei gives the boy a small, disarming smile. he continues, ❛ i'm pretty sure we can't over-water this one, naruto. this one, though, ❜ he points to a pot nearby, ❛ i think it'll be okay with extra. you think you can remember if i start showing you which plants need more water and which doesn't ? we can make a game out of it. if you win, i'll treat you to snacks on top of teuchi-san's ramen. ❜

jana sending in soft things ♡

#fighterbound #thats his kid !!!! #iruka. #iruka; answered.

[happyocelot]

For some reason, I never posted this here until now. Team 8 + Hinata’s POV, set during the second of the Chuunin Exams when they’re all in the Forest of Death. A little bit of NaruHina.

Hope you all like this. Tell me what you think?

***

Hinata bunched up into her jacket, pulling the hoodie over her ears. Cicadas chirped and birds tittered. And then the occasional echoing of what may have been screams of terror. She tried not to dwell on those too much or else her palms got even paler and clammier than usual.

There were other sounds too, sounds neither she nor her teammates could identify, sounds that made Akamaru cover his ears and tuck in his tail, poor thing.

Lighting a campfire was a big no-no, said Shino, shoving his sliding sunglasses back up his face. Why? Because it was like sending up a flare, letting everyone know their location. Foolish.

We know that already, Kiba had snapped. Stop acting like you're some big shot, Shino.

Lunch had not been very pleasant so far, what with those two glowering at each other the whole time, Kiba taking comically large bites out of his energy bars and Shino advising him to please just chew a bit louder in case someone a hundred miles away hadn't heard them yet.

She thought of mediating. To tell Kiba that Shino meant well. To tell Shino to back off a bit, not be so professorial.

Her voice died in her throat before she even tried.

It wasn't like they would listen. No one listened, so what was the point in speaking?

Ya know, said a voice in her mind that sounded a lot like his. Whoever named this place has a thing for puns, right, Hinata?

His voice had been popping up on and off in her mind unbidden, ever since the first exam. Giving her advice. Trying to cheer her up. Telling her to count from one to ten when the mulchy, sickly-sweet scent of the forest became too overwhelming. Asking her if she packed any ramen for gnawing hunger pangs, 'cause you can't eat half the plants in this creepy place, can you? A loud peal of laughter, arms crossed behind his head, nodding sagely. When he did that, she had barely transformed her emerging giggle into a cough. She almost slipped from her tree branch.

Bright, loud, sunny. Anyone else would have found it annoying to find his voice in their head.

But Hinata? Hinata would never get tired of listening to him. Even if no one else did.

I'd like to listen to you, Hinata! said the Naruto that her mind had inexplicably daydreamed into being. You have a really nice voice, ya know? You should use it to tell those morons to shut up! They're waaaay too loud.

Hinata's thumbs twitched. She poked them together, her voice still dormant in her throat.

How do you even know that they won't listen if you haven't tried? Dream-Naruto wondered, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion. If it was me, I'd yell at them until my voice got through. I wouldn't give up, no matter what.

He...he was loud.

That's right!

She wondered if this was how he convinced Iruka-sensei to let him pass. By being really loud.

Nah, Iruka-sensei just saw my AWESOMENESS. He just had to let the future Hokage pass, ya know?

She giggled again and turned it into a hiccup just in time. Kiba's head whirled around.

"Hinata, you have hiccups? Why didn't you say so sooner, I would've given you some of my water!" He grinned, showing off his metal canister, coated in what seemed to be Akamaru's drool.

She smiled all the same.

"Thank you, Kiba-kun, but I'm fine."

Hinata~aaa, Dream-Naruto whined. You need to speak up a bit more. This hurts to watch.

***

It took a long time for her to find her voice again.

All the way through, Naruto kept cheering her on.

#team 8 #aburame shino #hyuuga hinata #inuzuka kiba #naruhina #naruto

[cassicaendra]

💫 FROM NARUTO TO BORUTO FANFICTION💫 #6

Official name: Unexpected

Only here on En here. From author personally.

There are five days left before the start of school..

He could fool around, watch TV, play with your sister.. Yes, all this has already been redone, and Himawari just left to look for a suitable teacher who crossed paths with the Hyuga clan, who will be able to unlock her potential.

And this means that almost the whole family will not be there, and Boruto flatly refused to go.

And, frankly, he regretted that he had quarreled with his father again.

It's important for their family.

"So what should I do now? Sarada, I think, is already busy, so she hasn't answered since morning.. Does Mitsuki use gadgets at all? I hardly found a kettle at their house! And the numbers in any case, no .."

Boruto lazily stretched.. There wasn't much choice left.

-.. "THE MARTIAL ARTS CENTER IS CLOSED FOR REPAIRS"? Until the fifteenth?! Came the second time called..

- USARATONKACHI GET OUT OF THE WAY!

He wouldn't even have realized who bumped into him at the same second if only one person hadn't called him like that..

..And of course, both of them rumbled right into a nearby grocery cart.

- WHAT THE HELL HAS COME OVER YOU!

- RUN, YOU IDIOT!

Menma jumped up, offering his hand. He looked like a disheveled, oddly enough, imp.

Boruto got up on his own, dusted himself off, and later noticed the chase.. He did not think anymore, but rushed after the topic.

As it turned out, Uzumaki was not the only one who could jump on roofs.

Uchiha-Uzumaki only grunted contentedly in the jump, catching up.

It looked like they were about to break away from the chase, and Menma was quite stretched in a smile...

...It turned out that he did it early, slipping on the tiles of someone else's very decent house. Someone's curious head popped out..

- What's interesting there?

- It's nothing Mom! - There was a hasty rattling of a spoon.

- Well, stand there, you little weasel!

Hearing a familiar voice after these two, Boruto had no difficulty guessing who Menma's pursuers were.

- Iruka, Kakashi-sensei, I have nothing to do with it!

- Then why are we running? - Hatake didn't seem tired of the chase at all. He just stared menacingly.

And here's Iruka.. Give me from above to catch my breath in this world, and not the other..(No wonder Kakashi called him an old man not so long ago)

- Why did you freeze, you knocked over the cart with me!

They took off again, sometimes overtaking each other, then running together.

- Actually, because of you!

- I didn't ask you to help me! You could have just disappeared! - And stuck out his tongue, turning into the already familiar street. To guess where exactly, it was not difficult ..

A second of delay... They catch both of them.

- I didn't expect your participation, Boruto. - Kakashi remarks with a bit of disappointment.

- Just like his father. And since he's not here, let's figure out the older sister, plowing for the benefit of the family of the second prankster. Aren't you ashamed? She's trying. Iruka continues.

Menma only tries to escape, which also ends unsuccessfully.

Boruto is still trying to prove that he was not involved in this. However, he is unlikely to be believed, he did it himself..

Ninja quickly get to the residence of the first, gallantly knocking.

- Kumiko-san, you're already home, aren't you? Your parodying offspring?

The door was unlocked. Other pairs of shoes appeared... That was the first thing Kakashi noticed. Alerted..

The water was running in the bathroom. Perhaps a polite thief? Although judging by the calmness..

A girl, barely dressed, appeared from the corridor.

- Menma, what have you done again?! And you're in league with him, as soon as you were left unattended? Don't you feel sorry for the heads?!

They were immediately pulled by the ears, scolded, and only then asked..

- What did these guys do? Not a robbery, I hope, or worse?

-K-Kumiko-sama, nothing too serious..

Iruka exchanged glances with Kakashi. They mentally said, "they will be punished even worse if we don't come up with something else," and changed their faces, building benevolent mentors.

- Let them fix what they've done. They painted the Hokage here, and ran away! Do you have a couple of buckets and rags? One for each, and let them drag themselves to wash through the whole block, to the former shine. - Umino came up with it quickly. - And here's what to do with the cart..

- What happened to the cart? Hijacking? Ruin?

- Rather the second. Unfortunately, you will have to deal with this, and we will.. We'll make sure they get there. They are already waiting for you on the square in front of the MAC.

- A...

- Martial Arts Center. You are similar to your brother, they will find out.

- I hear it again, only when I have to pay..

Mikoto wanted to say a few words to the instigator.. But he was already on the street, quickly turning around, but still taking buckets.

Boruto, if possible, began to be rightly indignant..

- Shut up, huh? Just help me not to carry these rags on myself. Otherwise I'll call Mitsuki, he's like a saint with you. He doesn't yell, he doesn't pretend to be stupid, he doesn't want to become a Hokage. - Menma snorted.

- What are these criteria, dobe!? I'm not stupid in any way and I'm not yelling. And in general, say thank you for helping.

- Fuck you. Follow me to the mountain, let's see how you concentrate the chakra! Maybe we can peel off your dad's face.. Or maybe he will come and admire the under-eyes, let him study fatherhood!

Uchiha-Uzumaki turned around. The eyebrow arched, the eyes narrowed..

- Did he leave yours for himself too?

- Yeah. But no one taught him to be a father. And yours is still trying, well, what can you do when you got married out of debt.

- YES, YOU FU....

For such words, Bo got really angry, starting to beat with rags, and Menma ran away.

However, running around with buckets is still a "pleasure".

In the meantime, one person was looking after them. And he was only upset.

- And who was chosen to be a jinchuriki..

..Menma listened. My insides ached - "you're missing, you're missing!", but there was nothing dangerous, except for the gloomy elderly caretaker of the pedestal.

- Why else can't we pass? The copying ninja together with the teacher sent us to wash our faces! Let's skip it, we won't fall down like some kind of youngsters!

- Why wash them?

She looked at them. At first with indifference.. Then her eyebrows arched in surprise, looking in the direction of the monuments..

- If you can walk on vertical surfaces, I will be glad not to look for equipment. You painted it yourself, and wash it yourself. It's not for an old woman to do this.

- We can. Give me the rags, Bo, you're out of breath like a locomotive!

Only when they had already descended (not without difficulty and possible slip) did the black-haired man not give the rag to a fellow in misfortune.

- Get down from here and go. You can say that I kicked you out, they'll take your word for it.

Uzumaki looked at him for a minute.. Then down..

...And flew back to the city. A couple of abrasions, of course, will remain, but..

"Is he really not as biting as he likes to show himself? Ugh, like Uncle Sasuke.. Maybe there is something good in you, little devil.."

He bought chips, mojito on the way.. And he went to Sarada's house. He can't sit alone, can he?

...When he heard the scream, he went to its source.

- Are you guys okay? Do you close the doors at all or do you like the guests so much?

Looked into the house..

#naruto fanfiction #naruto #yaoi #boruto fanfiction #sakura #saske uchiha #sarada #sasunaru #sasusaku #sasuke uchiha #sarada uchiha #sakura uchiha #team 7 naruto #narusasu #unexpected #new part

[electrasev5nwrites]

Ninja Daily: Vapors 6

Naruto idly tapped on his desk (the one directly in front of where Iruka lectured, which would theoretically make it easier for the Chuunin to catch him misbehaving), wishing the period would just finish already. He had clawed his way out of the bottom of the academic rankings to a respectable middling position, but he would still much rather be working on his aim.

Lately he had been spending almost all of his physical development time on throwing skills, after he'd noted that Mizuki-sensei was a goddamn prick and never pointed out his mistakes. He never seemed especially approving either- he'd give Naruto's poor katas the same nod he gave Sakura's technical perfection. He wasn't addressing either of their issues.

Naruto knew from watching his pretty (incredibly, mind-bogglingly, world-changingly pretty) classmate that her stamina was very poor and that she was lacking in muscle mass (even for the admittedly low standards for ten year old girls). Likewise, he knew that he tended to overreach and start his kata too quickly which ended up forcing him faster and faster. Speed was great, but he wanted to go at a speed he wasn't ready for and that ended up making his steps sloppy.

He probably wouldn't know the difference if Aiko hadn't pointed out his issues in the same casual way she told him it was his turn to take out the garbage. It wasn't good or bad, it was just being brought to his attention so that he could do something about it.

Ino (He took a moment to glare at the back of her head, long blonde hair swaying gently in the breeze from open windows) had been less diplomatic about his level. He was going to fight her one day too. Aiko was spending what seemed like every other morning working out with Ino.

He'd been invited, of course, but… he had other things to do. Like find out where Mizuki-sensei lived and smear the juice from a can of tuna fish under the table. (No matter how hard Mizuki-bastard scrubbed, his kitchen was going to gradually get stinkier and stinkier.) Naruto tried not to cackle overmuch in class. That had been yesterday- the Chuunin had probably only recently noticed the smell and was trying to find the source. Comedic gold, if only he could witness the frustration himself. An eraser suddenly appeared in him immediate vision and he jerked to the left to avoid it. 'Eh heh heh… Iruka-sensei looks kinda mad.'

"Stop cackling, Uzumaki. It's disruptive and just plain weird." With a mid-level stern glare (Naruto had made a mental chart, categorizing the severity of Iruka Glares) the Chuunin that didn't totally suck (Bite me, Mizuki-bastard!) went back to droning on about why you actually shouldn't aim for the jugular in a certain type of situation. It had something to do with bloodspray and tracking by scent?

For the next four minutes, Naruto was a model student.

Then he was tired of that.

Sasuke, that goddamn prick, was dutifully focused on the lecture. He never took notes, but he was always right when the teachers called on him. They called on him a lot- whenever Naruto or Kiba couldn't answer a question, Iruka would look to Mr. Perfect Hair. Smug bastard. Naruto broke a pencil in his fist, totally oblivious to the way that Shino gave him a mildly alarmed stare and inched away, beetles hiding deeper under his seasonally inappropriate coat.

Naruto shifted guiltily. It sucked to compare his academic performance to others. It was just so hard. 'Maybe if I worked like Aiko, I'd already be graduated.' The thought made him feel bad about himself, so he tried not to think it often. It was hard to not to make the comparison, though. She was his twin and they'd entered the academy the same year- should they be more alike?

It wasn't that Naruto didn't work at his ninja skills- far from it! He worked at it daily. But he just couldn't only be a ninja like Aiko. She didn't have any hobbies or downtime, and her workouts with Ino were probably the closest thing she had to a friendship. If she'd been someone else… well, he might have thought that she was cripplingly weird and too serious. She kinda acted like an old lady, (except for all the cursing, of course.)

That afternoon he rushed home, pinching the torn seam of his favorite black t shirt shut. (He was totally going to beat the shit out of Kiba next time they sparred, believe it!). 'I beat Aiko home,' he noticed dumbly when he shucked off his shoes. 'That almost never happens.' Aside from her one overnight mission, his sister was almost always home when he walked in the door. She generally went out to train again after the worst of the heat passed, but only after they had dinner. He felt like being helpful, so he started some tea before he tugged off his shirt and went in search of the little sewing kit Aiko had been forced to buy for her kunoichi class.

Naruto really didn't understand how she could be so incredibly bad at repairing her clothes, especially since she'd had to take a class on it. The things that girl could do with a seam just didn't bear thinking about, so Naruto generally clenched his teeth and did her mending in addition to his own.

"Oy, that tea fresh?"

"Yeah, but you don't get any because you're a cotton-headed ninnymuggins," he called back casually, fighting down the corners of his mouth. He heard his sister snicker from the other room- that one always made her laugh for some reason. Naruto wasn't entirely sure why. She'd taught him lots of bad words to call people and most of them didn't make her laugh at all.

Aiko wandered in from the kitchen (he hadn't even noticed her cross the room, when had she gotten so sneaky?) holding a cup of tea. "You look like doo," he casually commented, keeping one eye on his stitches and one eye on the way her right eye twitched. "I'm not sure what kind. Unimaginative bet is on dog doo, but I'm leaning towards sheep."

"Thanks, little brother. You always know just what to say." She flopped down onto the couch in a way that probably should have spilled hot liquid all over her. He'd been joking, but he hadn't really been lying. She must have come directly from her workout, because her bangs were still plastered to her forehead with sweat and he could see a line of bruises on the backs of her forearms- from blocking blows in a spar with a stronger opponent, probably?

He imagined that if he stared long enough, he would be able to watch him fade. Both of the twins healed quickly, but he never seemed to see it happen. It was almost as if bruises waited for him to lose interest before they scuttled off.

"What are you thinking about?" Her uncanny blue-green eyes were directed at him. Naruto loved his sister's eyes. They looked like what he imagined the ocean was.

"Crabs," Naruto said firmly. "Would you describe the way they move as a scuttle?" He waved his hands to demonstrate, light glinting off the needle in his fist.

"I've never met a crab," she said dryly. "When I do, I'll tell you all about it." Aiko kicked her feet up to rest on the arms of the couch, stretching one arm out precariously to set her tea cup down with a clink onto the side table. "Brother mine, love of my life, most clever and ki-"

"You're so full of shit it's coming out your ears," Naruto interrupted blandly, too focused on his mending to muster up an emotional response. "What is it you want mended?"

"I'll go get them." Aiko easily rolled off the couch and landed on just one foot, sliding into a walk without a moment's awkwardness. Naruto silently cursed his sister's coordination while she padded away to rustle around in the bedroom (they shared) and came back with what appeared to be a pair of her leggings. She tossed it at him, and he barely pulled them out of the air before they landed on his hair. "Please and thank you. "

"What's for dinner?" he called. He could practically sense his sister roll her eyes from the kitchen. She was clearly getting things ready- the icebox opened and closed, as did drawers and he could hear rustles. Then there was a knock on the door. Naruto blinked and then his sister was crouched beside him, frowning slightly.

"You expecting anyone?" she asked in an undertone. He shook his head, setting the needle aside and sliding a kunai out of his holster. Aiko gave him an approving quirk of the lips, moving to the door so quickly that she was just a blur of color. The tenseness in her shoulders fled as soon as she cracked the door and breathed deeply. "Um, hello sensei. Would you like to come in and have some tea?"

A tall man stepped through the door. 'He's weird looking,' Naruto marveled, putting his kunai away and picking his mending back up again. This was his first glimpse of Aiko's sensei. He was slouched over like Shikamaru, dressed like a Jounin, and had hair like he'd stuck a finger in a light socket. When the tall guy turned to pass one eye lazily over Naruto, the boy stiffened. The dark blue mask over his jaw moved slightly, but Naruto couldn't tell what expression was being made. "Maaa, Aiko," the old guy rumbled. "No tea, thank you. I came to tell you to get ready. We have a last minute mission."

"Duration?" Aiko asked briskly, draining her tea cup and starting towards the bedroom.

The old guy 'hmmmed'. "Oh, hard to say. We're tracking a Chuunin level missing nin. Should be an easy introduction into the craft. I'd pack light. We're going to be doing a lot of running."

"Is this why you've been pushing my speed so much?" Aiko called from the bedroom, sounding calm despite the sounds of frantic packing.

"Exactly." One dark eye drifted over to examine Naruto as if it could x-ray down to the thoughts in his head. Naruto scowled, crossing his arms and giving the intruder a stink-eye. 'Who does he think he is, budging in here and dragging Aiko away when she just got home?'.

His sister bounded back into the room, wearing twice the weapons she had been before and toting a navy blue knapsack. She nearly barreled Naruto over when she gave him a hug, grinning fiercely and poking his nose. "Eat your junk food tonight, but be sure to cook real food tomorrow, okay? Be good, stay safe, and don't prank Mizuki 'til I get back."

Naruto harrumphed, dutifully leaning back into the hug with his chin resting on her shoulder (and ugh, he was going to be taller than her one day soon, believe it!) and rolling his eyes. "Yes, mother," he drawled, pleased by the attention but too grown-up to tolerate it in front of a stranger. The old guy seemed to flinch, his one visible eye flickering to Aiko's bizarrely colorful hair. Naruto startled and gave the old guy a distrustful stare. He didn't like leaving his sister with a stranger, especially not one this weird.

Unfortunately, no one asked his very excellent opinion and the two ninja sped out of the apartment building, leaving him alone and bored.

Even with all the stamina and speed training she had done since graduation, Aiko had to grit her teeth to cope with the pain in her feet and weakness in her legs after a few hours of running without stop. Kakashi-sensei had been very certain that she had a lot of potential for speed, and it was one of the few things he actually trained her in. He'd been right, but the pace they needed to keep in order to gain ground on a ninja of a higher rank like a Chuunin was wearing on her quickly. Her hip, knee, and ankle joints were all screaming with pain by the time he allowed her to have a break, crouching to speak quietly with the brown, scruffy looking dog he'd summoned. In a moment, he dismissed the dog they'd been following and whipped through hand seals and summoned- is that a pug?

Aiko ignored the ninken that she was pretty sure would answer to 'Pakkun' and drained half a bottle of water, then gulping down a quick dissolve pill that should restore some of the salt she'd lost through sweat and reduce the amino acid burn from the run. She flopped to the forest floor and bent into a straight-legged stretch, trying to calm her heartrate and breathing through sheer force of will.

"Who is this?"

Aiko looked up at the surprisingly deep voice, somehow not surprised to see that the pug had invaded her personal space. When her teacher didn't speak up, she managed to catch her breath enough to briefly introduce herself. "Uzumaki Aiko, happy to meet you."

'Very happy. He's so cute! I wonder if it's too undignified for a ninken to snuggle?'

"Pakkun," the pug said simply. He snuffled at her side, causing her to yelp when she felt his cold nose through her thin shirt. "So this is-"

"My student," Kakashi interrupted smoothly. The dog gave him a look that indicated the two would be having a talk later, but let it slide. He pointedly nudged her tummy with his square head, and Aiko reflexively scratched behind his ears and stroked down his back. His fur was so sort- it was more like petting a bunny than a comparatively coarse dog. The girl couldn't help but smile. It was the first time she'd really met a dog in this lifetime, but the doggy scent he gave off was comforting and very familiar. Maybe she'd been a dog person in her past life.

'Did Pakkun know Kushina and Minato well enough to notice a connection with my scent?' Aiko pursed her lips. It looked that way, which would also explain her teacher's uncharacteristic interruption. He was often rude, yes, but generally through inaction like his failure to introduce the two parties than by actively doing something rude.

"Pakkun, we're on the clock," Kakashi drawled. "Make friends later."

"No respect," the small dog grumbled, reluctantly leaning out of her reach and sniffing around the area. "Yeah, I have the scent. We're damn close. Your prey is weak and slowing down, so we should be able to catch up within the hour at most. Why are you taking your pup on a hunt, boy?"

Aiko almost choked, eyes wider than what she could pretend was dignified. 'I don't think Pakkun talked to Kakashi like that in the manga,' she thought weakly. The idea of her strict teacher being referred to as 'boy'…. It didn't bear thinking about. Said teacher looked more amused than anything.

"Maa, Pakkun, I'm starting to think you don't trust my judgment. I wouldn't have brought the pup if I couldn't keep her safe. This should be an easy introduction to real missions, even if she is still out of shape despite months of my best work," he casually insulted. Aiko felt that eye twitch start up again. She willed the muscle spasm to stop. "Alright, break is over. Let's go." With a sigh, Aiko gave one last stretch and climbed to her feet. As the small group started running again, her teacher let the pug take point and slowed down to run beside her. "You know," he said quietly, "You're going to see your first kill. We don't bring missing nin back alive, but we can't allow them to go and make Konoha look weak either."

Momentarily stunned, Aiko struggled to find her footing on the next landing. Her teacher didn't comment, but she didn't fool herself into thinking he hadn't noticed. "I see," she managed. "I… I suppose that makes sense." It did make a terrible kind of sense. Kakashi was famous as both a ninjutsu specialist and a tracker, and he had spent roughly a decade in ANBU. Of course he got a lot of hunting missions.

"You're a good kid," he said quietly. "I just want you to remember why we're doing this. You got stuck with me for a teacher, so you unfortunately are going to pick up my specialties, like retrieval. This is just a run to gain experience for you. You're going to hang back, and if I assess that the situation is going poorly you will obey my orders immediately. Is that understood?"

"Yes sir," she automatically replied.

His attention slid up front and he leapt ahead at the exact moment Pakkun gave a rough bark. A moment later (it might have been a quarter of a second or up to three whole seconds later, Aiko's brain seemed to have decided it wanted to process time in new and interesting ways) a lithe figure exploded from the tree tops, aiming a hard kick at Pakkun –the throat, it would have him choking in his own blood and knock him off the branch he was perched on, the fall was too far, he couldn't land safely. Her muscles moved without her knowledge to position her so that she could catch him if he fell. The dog couldn't possibly dodge it in time, but her sensei was suddenly there deflecting the blow and forcing her backwards with straight taijutsu.

Aiko felt like her eyes were about to pop out of her head, but she couldn't stop staring. She'd improved her speed by almost a hundred percent since she graduated, but what the fighters were doing was downright insane. She could barely keep track of them as flashes of dark and light and rustles of clothing flickering in the branches of the enormous Konoha trees.

It was damn hard to tell, but the Chuunin they'd been sent to retrieve (at least, that was probably the opponent, especially as she'd immediately aimed for the ninken tracking her) appeared to be a dark-haired woman of extraordinarily short stature. 'For some reason, I pictured a nondescript man in uniform.' Aiko tried not to wince. She hadn't really thought of the missing nin as a breathing human being- just a target, a filler character. 'He's going to kill this person,' she dully realized. A real person. She felt her breathing speed up, but couldn't control it. She leapt backwards, keeping both combatants in her vision but painfully aware that she was outclassed and had been told to stay out of the way.

She hadn't realized just how enormous the gulf between a genin and a Chuunin was. It had always seemed so easy and natural- that if she just kept working she would get there one day as a brief stop on the road to being a Jounin who could protect Naruto and herself. But this was insane.

Aiko knew damn well that her sensei was a monster among shinobi- one of the absolute best. But this woman seemed to be keeping up with him surprisingly well, despite the obvious signs that she was drained and desperate. 'She must be a taijutsu specialist,' the ten-year old hypothesized. And wasn't that counterintuitive- to see such a tiny woman holding her own in a physical fight against a tall man.

The whole encounter lasted perhaps twenty seconds and boasted at least three times as many blows, from her desperate charge to the instant when Kakashi slid under the woman's guard and dispassionately snapped her neck. 'A bloodless kill,' Aiko numbly registered. 'So that he doesn't bother Pakkun's nose. He must think we still need to do some tracking.' She only noticed she was shaking when her sensei shot her an inscrutable look.

"Pakkun, check ahead. If she set up traps, I want to disable them before we go. Aiko-chan, come here." She steeled herself, then leapt to her teacher's side with two agile jumps, remaining in a slight crouch over the lump of flesh that was a living breathing human being until very recently. "Do you know how we dispose of bodies?" he asked tonelessly.

'Sealing scrolls?' Aiko twitched, feeling her stomach roil. 'No, don't be stupid. That's an expensive resource, it wouldn't be used for a low-level nin like this. That would only be necessary to collect on a bounty.' She took a steadying breath. "We burn it?"

"Correct. Watch my hands." He steadily worked his way through six hand signs, then breathed in deeply through his nose and pushed one hand out, encased in a flickering orange flame that leapt to cover the body. In an instant, every inch of flesh was shimmering through orange fire- then it blackened, then there was a horrible stench and the corpse crumbled in on itself and burst into greasy ash. Aiko coughed, waving one hand in front of her face to try to keep from breathing the material in. Her sensei dispassionately flipped through three hand signs and blew out a harsh blast of air that scattered the remains through the tree tops.

'The metal didn't burn," Aiko observed. It had been distorted in the sudden heat, but she could still pick out buckles from boots, a thin sludge of what must have been hidden senbon, and two kunai from a thigh holster.

"That was strangely anticlimactic. She was here and now she's dust." Aiko stared blankly at the ash on the wind. A warm hand landed on her head, fingers gently rustling into her hair.

"Being a ninja isn't usually glamorous or climactic," he rumbled. "Most of it is quick, dirty and altogether unpleasant. The types of battles that kids play at in Academy- only the real elites fight that way. It's more of a vanity thing than practical."

"A dick measuring contest," she said without thinking. She actually felt her teacher stiffen. 'Ah, oops, probably not an age-appropriate metaphor,' she realized too late.

"Ah, I suppose," he said, sounding spectacularly uncomfortable. He gave a deep sigh. "Pakkun, report."

"All clear," the dog barked.

"Thank you," he said absentmindedly. The dog had just enough time to nod before he was dismissed. "All right," he sighed, pushing one hand through his hair. It got stuck and he had to tug it out. Aiko forced down an inappropriate smile. "Now we go home and report. Do you want to take a break here? You did well keeping up. I wanted to catch her before she got to the first town, where she might have caused more trouble and complicated the mission."

Aiko consciously didn't look at the branch they were standing on. "No, I'm good." She gave her teacher a weak smile, noting how weary and old he looked. She suddenly wanted to perk him up- he shouldn't look like that. He was only in his twenties. "Come on, old man" she teased, nudging his ribs with her shoulder. "I get it already, you're a total badass. Are you going to make me that fast?"

Her teacher snorted, shoulders relaxing imperceptibly before he took off in a blur of movement. She gave a cry of indignation and hurried to catch up. "You're years away from that," he taunted. "You can barely run in a straight line. I think you should master that before Jounin level taijutsu, eh?"

"I'd be happy if you'd teach me anything instead of beating on me all day," she faux-accused. She really was learning- it just wasn't the kind of thing she could show off. Becoming a faster runner and putting on muscle mass wasn't nearly as cool to demonstrate as crazy taijutsu or elemental jutsu.

She regretted the taunt when her teacher gave a low chuckle. "Well, if my cute little student needs to be taught, I suppose I can dream something up."

The next day, she reported for her promised training and was pleasantly surprised to get her primary element tested.

"Water?" Kakashi's mask moved as if he was biting at his lip (that really didn't hide everything, why had Team 7 been so irritated by it in the anime? It was just a thin piece of fabric). "Well, I'm no expert at that one but I suppose I can get you started. That's my least favorite element," he cheerfully announced.

"Gee, thanks," she grumbled, dropping the soggy paper to the ground. This was her least favorite part of the training ground- she hadn't come here since her accidental cat murder. She very carefully did not look at the scorched earth to her right. 'No one knows. No one will ever know.' She suppressed a twitch. It was like that Poe story with the beating heart. She just couldn't stop thinking about that goddamn cat. And it seemed like there was no way that Kakashi hadn't noticed her discomfort. 'Is that why we're at this specific part of the training ground? Is it just a coincidence? Is he trying to coerce me into confessing?'

"Don't worry, once you've mastered all the water jutsu in the world we can start you on a good element." Aiko drooped. 'Somehow that's not reassuring.' Her teacher coughed lightly. "Pay attention, Aiko-chan."

The technique he'd showed her was bizarre, ill-suited to Konoha's climate, and incredibly familiar.

"You want me to practice turning into a puddle of water," she said blankly, kicking at her sensei. He materialized from the puddle of –well, himself she supposed, and wasn't that ewwww- and grabbed her ankle, giving her a stern look. "I was envisioning something with some sort of combat potential. Or any kind of potential, really. I suppose that'll be useful if I ever get a mission to investigate the soles of rainboots."

"Don't be a smart ass, it doesn't suit you. Did you catch the hand seals?" Obligingly, he ran slowly through them one more time while she copied. "Good. This element transformation should come comparatively easily to you. More importantly, once you have this down, you'll be able to apply the same skill to summon a mist to hide in, make a water clone, and do a couple other nifty tricks, like causing rain in a small area."

Aiko blinked. "Oh," she said dumbly. "That actually does sound useful."

"It's almost like I'm your teacher or something," Kakashi drawled sarcastically. "The hard part is going to be chakra saturation- in order for this to work, you actually need both respectable reserves and the ability to manipulate almost all of it at once. You won't actually lose most of it in the jutsu, but it needs to be transformed from the neutral state to water type."

Aiko found herself alone on the training ground long after her sensei had slunk away for the night, incredibly frustrated. "Why can't I make this fucking jutsu work?" she outright hissed, flinging her hands up and desperately wishing for something or someone that she could hit.

Too stubborn to give up, she abandoned her normal workout routine for the night in order to concentrate on getting down the one jutsu her sensei had trusted her to learn. She thought that she had the first part down, at least.

After hours of trial and error, she could now transform the neutral chakra at her stomach, head, and other main gates into water natured chakra easily and quickly. Seeing as how that didn't do anything, however, it clearly became obvious that it wasn't enough. After that it was a rush to either flood her chakra coils with the new water natured chakra or concentrate on changing the lingering remnants of chakra in her coils in the same way she'd changed the stored chakra. Unfortunately, the first method seemed to require an exact speed of release that she hadn't mastered, and the second method seemed to require more concentration than she could boast of. If she focused on the floating chakra, her reserves faltered back into their neutral state.

'I'm going to figure this out if it kills me,' she vowed. She'd never failed at a jutsu before, and she wasn't about to start now.

Kakashi slouched a little further, silver hair tickling the back of his neck. He really needed to do something about it. Eventually. "I admit I had doubts about taking a fresh genin out hunting, but she performed well in the field. She displayed a relatively healthy reaction to seeing a kill under controlled combat conditions. It doesn't seem far-fetched that she could be trained as part of a hunter unit. My initial reservations about whether or not that'd be a waste of a potential front-line type still stand, however. She'll probably excel in either specialty."

The Sandaime Hokage smiled, giving the reporting Jounin his full attention for a split second while he was switching out stamps. "Excellent, Kakashi-kun. I am glad to hear it. I've always heard good things about Aiko while she was in the Academy, but of course that doesn't always translate to field performance."

"Actually, she's weirder in the village," Kakashi mumbled, trying not to think too much about why his student got so damn twitchy every time they went to training ground 7. It was probably safer not to know. He lowered his book to address the Hokage directly, but still held Icha Icha up high enough to obscure most of his face. "But her work ethic is satisfactory. I have been concentrating on her speed and endurance. I would say she's actually on par with experienced Genin in those two areas. She's a rank beginner in taijutsu, of course, and her weapons aren't much better. Now that I'm momentarily satisfied that she can be trusted to make it to a mission, I'm teaching her some mostly evasive jutsu so that she doesn't get skewered by someone out of her league. That would be everyone, of course."

"And to think you claimed you didn't want to train genin for so long," Sarutobi pointed out, not bothering to hide his smile.

Kakashi gave him an uncharacteristically sharp look. "I don't," he said shortly. "But Minato's kids deserve to be taught right. Aiko has her mother's chakra type, which probably makes her our only water type in that generation. I was never good at Kushina's whirlpool style jutsu, but I can teach it to her well enough. She deserves that legacy." He turned his face away from the Hokage's partially sympathetic and partially frustrated expression.

"She isn't her parents," Sarutobi said, a little harshly. He narrowed his eyes, gave the Jounin his full attention and even focused a little bit of intent in his direction. "You understand that?"

"Yes, of course." Kakashi's head twitched into something an optimist might term an incline. "Is that all, Hokage-sama?"

#vapors #uzumaki aiko #electrasev5n #ninja daily #fanfiction #naruto fanfiction

[bogbees]

(Jazz hands) ROLE REVERSAL

7:30 AM · Nov 19, 2017

Kakashi sensei is a.... character. He's very precise and very relaxed individual, his students claim him to be lazy - until they find themselves in a lecture. He's very thorough and adamant.

He's the only person in the damn village to give Naruto his full undivided attention. It morphs into some sort of family bond later and he wants to tear his eyes out bc of it.

Kakashi regularly makes sure the kid is eating his veggies. And cares so much ab him passing his final exam he ends up fighting Mizuki and getting a huge damn shuriken through his back

Naruto cries and does KAGE BUSHIN NO JUTSU and passes and now Kakashi is crying bc his son is happy and sage (and not bc of the pain no)

Iruka Umino ex elite anbu ninja, failed all his previous genin teams cause they never meet his impossibly high standards gets assigned Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke

Kakashi is gonna piss himself bc of course Naruto would end up with that guy! Of course! Still worried if Nar will pass tho. He thinks he did a FAB job teaching them

Iruka sorta jokes around with them - his prankster days never died - and finds their complete uncoordination appalling. Bad match up, awful, why these three together - oh wait, they have empathy for another? That's new

So he signs up as their jounin sensei. He's actually kinda excited - don't let Anko find out, she'll tell everyone he actually likes kids.

And then Naruto drags him to a ramen stand and they're waiting for someone --- "Iruka sensei please meet Kakashi neechan!" "Naruto they're Konoha ninja they probably know each other"

And simultainously both Iruka and Kakashi go "Naruto respect your elders" bc they are not having this kid go around calling Kakashi his brother /in public/

They smile. This won't be so bad. Cut to four weeks down the road when Kakashi hires them to wash his dogs for the 3rd time annonsomsly.

Pakkun is tired of these brats being so rough, so he goes "I can't believe Kakashi hired you all again" The room goes quiet. Iruka bites his cheek to keep from laughing. Naruto explodes. Sakura and Sasuke join him. They're throwing wet sponges everywhere

It's chaos and loud and everything is sogged and Kakashi races onto the scene like "stop this!!!" Naruto throws a soggy sponge at him like "you stop hiring us to wash yoyr dogs!!!"

Iruka is laughing his was off as Kakashi and Naruto argue over the benefit of this job. Sakura and Sasuke resume washing the dogs. Pakkun regrets.

By the end of it, Kakashi is serving dinner in the hatake mansion to his previous students and their new teacher and all his dogs. He says he hates it but he's lying

ESPECIALLY WHEN THE CUTE JOUNIN SENSEI OFFERS HIS ASSITANCE. god damn you could bounce a yen off that man's ass

Now Iruka gets them a super cool mission bc they won't stop complaining - Sasuke has started voicing his opinions dear gods - they're escorting an old guy to the wave country

He repeats himself like "children. This is work and you need to be responsible. We are protecting a civilian from harm. Don't be a hero. You will die."

So Zabuza shows up like EYYY LEMME AT EM and Naruto almost dies ish but yo look at that kyubii magic. Haku shows up like "thanks for that" and they all leave

They make it to their destination but can't go home because there's a shitty storm and so Iruka teaches the kids how to climb trees like the monkeys they oughta be

But like, he not only gives them the basics, but a lecture on it too so maybe visualising the process in their head will help. He gets them to try walking along the walls barefoot - they pretty much succeed

So he takes them into the wilderness like "now try that on these trees" and Sakura fucking masters it in one go.

Sasuke and Naruto return to Iruka for instruction, and Iruka rubs his chin like "alright, you both learn by doing, yeah, so here's what we do" and constructs this obstacle course in the woods for them

He's got a thin board over a puddle of mud like "you can stay on using balance, but if i don't see you walk across as you would on ground, you're getting pushed off."

So Sasuke ends up fighting it out before Naruto and Naruto gets crabby bc of it, but now Sasuke and Sakura are very interested in keeping him on par with their skills. So they give him tips and pointers. Iruka couldn't be more proud

On the day Naruto gets it, and they decide to take their training to the water - the gang attacks. And it's solved in like zero minutes bc Iruka is a seals master and thanks to barrier tag traps everything is ok

They all get arrested and somehow Zabuza and Haku flee but no one is too worried bc they're together and that's all that matters

So they stick around to help construction - Iruka thinks it'll give them more stamina and there's chakra control practice by walking on the water. Which they all get sorta, Naruto sinks a little but he's still upright so!

They return to little fan fare but Kakashi's dumb worrying face that is the same as his regular face but u can tell bc his eyes are a little more open. He treats them to ichiraku

Team 7 is like "Kakashi watch this!" And the three of them are walking up the walls and ceiling of his dining room like cicadas and he might cry if Iruka wasn't laughing

"They named the bridge after Naruto!" He says, "I did all the work and he gets the name bc he's too likable!" Kakashi smiles fondly under his mask like 'ain't that the truth'

So circa chunin exams Iruka has taught them more neat ninja skills - Sasuke finds seals to be hella interesting, Sakura has apparently some super rare bloodline and Kakashi's old friend is giving her lessons on that and Naruto is....

Naruto is interested in summoning. He likes the idea of calling things into existence. Kakashi won't help by explaining how his ninken summoning works and Gai's student Tenten isnt too hot on tutorial either

So Iruka has been writing letters up the Wahoo to Jiraiya to try and get the man's help. "Come back." He pleads. "Naruto wants to summon."

So Jiraiya returns solely to fight Iruka for being a nag. Literally. "Iruka Umino you're just like your mother. Annoying." Iruka flicks a smoke bomb at the old man and they play this game of cat and mouse

Only each time Iruka uses a smoke bomb, he's been planting a barrier seal attached to a kunai that's been laced with chakra wire. He's weaving a basket around Jiraiya and catches the old fart in 40 minutes

Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Kakashi and Tenzou stare in awe. Iruka just did that. "Naruto, this man will teach you how to summon frogs. Have fun" and leaves. The audience stares at the space he had been and Jiraiya snorts.

So this is how Jiraiya teaches Naruto how to summon. Sasuke vows to be as good as Iruka one day. Sakura and Tenzou build a dog house for Kakashi's dogs. And Kakashi finds Iruka alone at the noodle stand

He's like "whyd you leave like that" "Oh you see, you have to leave Jiraiya alone with what you want him to do. It's the only way." "No really" "Ok I was starving and am not going to pay for Naruto's bottomless pit let alone four more mouths"

And they have a weird date and discuss the upcoming Curnin exams. They agree the kids would be good to go. Iruka laments he idea of getting stuck in a scroll for three days - hes a busy man (and ex anbu! Like!) and Kakashi takes his shoulder "I'll do it"

So they make plans that if their kids try the chunin exams and pass the first round - Kakashi will be there in the scroll for when they pass. It has been decided.

So when the exams get announced, Naruto has one animal summon, Sasuke has five neat barrier tricks and ten more up for circumstance and Sakura can create and will wooden blocks. Plus they all have stellar chakra control!

Iruka thinks they're good to fucking go. Plus he's socialized them well so they shouldn't be picking fights with other Konoha shinobi bc they think they're better than them. He scoffs, imagine, Sasuke picking a fight with Rock Lee! What a weird world that'd be!

They're weirded put by the sand sibs but like, this is before Power of Friendship Gaara so who isn't, really. Iruka's already planning playdates bc jinjurikis should prob stick together, ya know, bond with those who know your suffering

Kakashi is looking over Iruka's shoulder like "dont. Do not write that. Gaara will not come over - he's the Wind's tailed beast we can't trust him"

So the kids pass their first test. Naruto just fakes it, doesn't write nothing, completely confident. Sakura and Sasuke get everything filled out with the correct answers.

So Kakashi gets wasted the night before he goes into the seal. Iruka shows up like at 8 like "don't forget! The thing is tomorrow" And by the power of booze, joy and fondness he kisses Iruka smack on the lips.

They pull apart, Iruka dazzled and looking a little deshelved, Kakashi a dumb love struck smile, and Kakashi closes the door humming.

Iruka kind of staggers home. Lost. Confused. Warm. Light. Cheeks burning and a smiling tugging at his weary frown.

So now it's morning of the second exam, Kakashi is fighting off a mild hangover and as he's getting set up to do the thing, he catches Iruka skirt around the room, why isn't he saying hello --- oh no.

So he's stuck in the scroll - idk can they do stuff in that void, are they just sleeping, suspended animation - for what feels like forever

Iruka HAS NOT been avoiding Kakashi bc of last night's kiss. Nah, he forgot it happened until he made coffee. He's just literally on security detail and can't say hello bc anbu mask - why is Kakashi staring at him???

Kakashi seems to know that he's the monkey or sm bc he won't take his eyes off him and it's pissing Iruka off so he blows the dumb man a kiss He sartles out of his trance and looks away. Iruka rolls his eyes and Anko takes his attention.

Later she's going to seriously ask him if he and Kakashi are a thing. He is going to sputter his beer into her face. She is going to pull a knife and go "try that again lover boy and you won't have any lips" Gods she's awful

So as a weird brother figure, he confirms that they have had one (1) kiss and that he catches Kakashi refer to team 7 as "their kids" often

Anko's grin might tear her face in two. "I win! That's so much money! No one thought you'd go for lazy chunin sensei Kakashi Hatake BUT I CALLED IT!" Iruka is so shocked he can't ask her to be quiet or how ---- "Come on, I know your type, family men."

He diverts the conversation to the examination bc holy shit he can't deal with any of this information. "You met Naruto today didn't you?" "Oh yeah, that kids a riot. Almost had him shit his pants. Good kid."

Iruka buys her a drink for that. Can't have that kid too comfortable around strangers. So they get off their break and return to work. Anko's going back to the tower and Iruka is going to patrol.

Nothing worth noting on the go, pretty quiet and nice, kinda worrying bc of all the foreign ninja - they /all/ can't be this chill can they??? So Iruka clocks out and heads to his fave ramen stand

Anko slithers in after he orders his second bowl and she's like "the money from the bet." He looks at her like 'why aren't you using this to buy more dango??'

"Look I was the only other person besides Asuma who bet on Kakashi. Out of our group" Iruka grimaces, all the ninja in the village have been placing bets on his love life. "So split between me and Asuma, I still have 5000 yen left. Figured to give you half"

"What because you can make easy money off of my love life?" "Nonsense! I still haven't decided what to bet on for your love life!" She looks out of existence like a true shadow clone and Iruka uses the 2500 yen to buy more ramen

What had happened was that Asuma had seen Iruka dressed in his anbu monkey mask entertaining a sullen Kakashi years and years ago. He told Anko one night, piss drunk and now they support it

Iruka doesn't remember the encounter, there's so much bs from being a child in anbu that makes him forget the good times. Kakashi recalls clearly that summer's day when Monkey tried to cheer him up.

Kakashi has the sharingan, but it's also dead. He was able to become a teacher bc he was useless and not an asset to the village.

So depression and ptsd from loosing his friends and family took it's toll and now he thinks it best if he can help teach these children so that maybe these mistakes won't happen again

Anyway so the kids breeze through the forest of certain death like a cake walk, got through as the 4th team they were so good at it Sakura punched kabuto in the face on reflex and he dropped his scroll and since Iruka hadn't introduced them, they dont trust him lmao

They do the scroll thing and out pops Kakashi Sensei with the most stupid smile on his face like "yo. Congrats, you passed" and it's kinda the least climatic thing to happen to them all week.

So the four of them hang around the tower until it's finished - Kakashi has no where to be, he had booked a week off for this. So the kids share with him their new skills - and he supervises spars between the kids who've finished.

The sand sibs end up watching the leaf genin fight each other, and Kakashi asks them if they want to join in. "It'll be like class!" The rookie nine all groan, fuck you Kakashi sensei

So he organises a short spar competition. Five minutes each fight and no weapons, no shots to kill. He includes Gaara in on it and kankuro and temari freeze up. Gaara just nods, slightly pissy but also confused.

So he's got the sand genin and the leaf genin play fighting each other while they wait for the actual fights to clear up. It's not until Rock Lee and Naruto are giving Gaara of the Sand taijutsu pointers that the irony dawns on him.

Monkey shows up like "Hatake-sensei what the fuck is going on here" and Kakashi is no where near afraid of the anbu in the room But the fight stops dead Naruto pipes up "eeeehhhh we're just socializing properly Iruka-sensei, what's the big deal" Everyone stops. Kakashi chokes

Iruka laughs, takes off his mask and smashes it, "well, so much for that." He looks at the group if kids with a big smile, "So are you all being nice to each other?"

We have Shino and Kankuro gushing ab bugs, in the corner, the girls all huddled together like they were always meant to be best friends, Rock Lee and Naruto and Sasuke talking to Gaara like he's not some monster

Kiba and Neiji were just in the middle of a mock flight, still froze stiff. Naruto goes "yes /daaad/ now go kiss Kakashi sensei or something, we're on to something here" And he turns back to the other boys like nothing he just said was life changing.

Iruka sits back down next to kakashi, who has picked up the shards of the mask and the kids continue existing as if they didn't have any supervision

"Was it really that obvious?" Iruka asks. Kakashi isn't sure what he's asking about, be it Monkey, their dumb mutual crush or their family fondness over these brats. But the answer is the same to all of these questions. "Yeah,"

So they watch Neiji and Kiba fight, then watch Ino and Temari spar, their hands lightly laced together as Kakashi hides his face behind a book

Eventually Naruto gets loud and very agitated, Iruka goes over to check on him. "It's the stupid seal, me n Sasuke can't fix it" Turns out Gaara has his stomach exposed to display the shoddiest seal work ever.

"Do you want me to do it?" "See knucklehead, I said Iruka sensei would know what to do!" "Yeah but he's my damn friend I wanna be the one to help!" Iruka smiles and almost cries bc Naruto is so honest and gaara looks startled

Temari and kankuro join them like "you can… Help him??" As if they can't believe the words coming out of his mouth Iruka nods, "it's a simple seal, but I can patch it up and add more so that it doesn't wear away." They look to be near tears

Naruto grins and looks to his new friend like "See, told ya, we jinjuriki gotta stay together" and Gaara looks so lost, the poor boy. So Kakashi suanders over like "damnit Iruka"

So Iruka whips up a draft to show them, explains what it does, compares it to Naruto's and Gaara's, all the kids are pretty engrossed with what he's saying and Sasuke is writing notes

We're back tracking to the first time team Naru-Sasu-Saku meet Iru

So Iruka's like "ah yes hello I'm Iruka Umino, I'll be your jounin instructor - if you pass my own genin examination. If not, you're all getting sent back to the academy! But I'd like to meet you all first"

So they do the thing they do in canon, where Sakura goes "I like Sasuke" Naruto goes "I'm gonna be the Hokage" and Sasuke does his "I want revenge" bc he's been festering in hate for the last 82 years

But instead of "oh well you're all weird kids" Iruka almost looses his mind and almost sends them all back then and there

Alright, alright, he goes, you're all children, but these things aren't gonna help you become ninja. Naruto, your goal is admirable, good, that's good. Least stupid. Tells me how far you're willing to go.

Sakura, you being in love tells me you can form bonds - which is good for teamwork, but you need to take it back a bit, and bond with your other team mates as well.

And then he turns to Sasuke. Revenge will not help you. You will not gain anything from that. Bad things are always happening and there's never any reason for it. He tells off Sasuke for his bs bc Iruka doesn't have a filter and will fight these kids

And the kids are like Sasuke: offended Sakura: offended Natuto: laughing his ass off

"I'd like to send you all back to the academy for this but! I said I was gonna give you all a chance to be full fledged genin. So! Here's my test!" And makes this weird quiz thing that is sorta like the bell test where the goal is for them to display teamwork 5:59 PM · Dec 3, 2017

#bogs' muttering #the great naruto twitter to tumblr transfer #naruto #kakairu

[ganseybois]

you asked for kakashi and iruka so here you go! iruka literally just staring at kakashi's face the first time he sees it :D

here you go :) i hope you like it! be gentle with me, been a very long time since i've written about them!

Iruka was quite certain that he would never get tired of this.

Last night had been so good, he had thought it was a dream. He and Kakashi had their first date, and it had gone far better than Iruka thought it would. He had been nervous, of course, after all, he was going on a date with one of the most famous shinobi in the world. Beyond that, and more importantly, it was a date with someone else very important to Naruto (but they would cross that bridge when they got there).

Either way, it had gone perfectly, they had even slept together (and boy, the rumours true about Kakashi being a fantastic lover were true), and now, Iruka was awake and staring at Kakashi as he slept.

Kakashi was handsome but shockingly normal looking. Yet, despite that, Iruka could not stop staring at him.

He slept with his mouth slightly open, one hand tucked under his head, the other in a fist against his chest. His hair, already a wild mess, was messier in bed. Although, Iruka had run his hands through it multiple times the night before.

His face, just like his body, was scarred from the long line that went through his eye and nearly down to his mouth. That mouth.

"Iruka," Kakashi said suddenly, making Iruka's heart stop. "Stop looking at me." he shut his mouth and then wiped it with the back of his hand before opening his non-sharingan eye, turning his face a little so he could look at Iruka properly.

"But you're just so pretty." Iruka teased.

Kakashi rolled his eye and shifted down slightly, moving closer to Iruka and curling up right by him, rubbing his cold nose along Iruka's chest. "Not quite as pretty as you."

"I disagree."

"Kakashi, come on." Iruka laughed, forcing Kakashi's face up so they could look at one another. "I want to look at you."

"You're going to get tired of it."

"Again, I disagree."

"Maa, Iruka-sensei, do you know how to do anything else?"

Iruka laughed softly. "Come on, you already played the sensei card last night, that's how you got me into bed."

"Well, that and my act of seduction."

"You don't have an act, Kakashi. You just show people your face and they get too stunned to do anything else but stare and have sex."

"Well," Kakashi grinned lightly, running his lips along Iruka's neck. "The point is I got you into bed, didn't I."

"You did, and I'm still sore, so you're going to have to wait until round two. Until then," he brushed their noses together and then ran his thumb along Kakashi's lip, "I just want to lie here, and look at you."

Kakashi sighed but smiled, closing his eye. "Whatever you want, Iruka."

#kakairu #hatake kakashi #umino iruka #naruto #prompt #kakairu prompt #ask

[wind-becomes-lightning]

where is my home?

-- I don't recognise the faces anymore~

overly long thing I wrote for my Kakashi daughter Tsuki because it is her birthday today. Wayyy too long for anyone caring, but here it goes! 3978 words. positively unedited because im too lazy to go over it and this will be read by like..3 people so.. you can keep the typos

Tsuki never really thought about the fact that she was adopted. It just wasn’t something on her mind.

She didn’t really remember how she had walked into her fathers and subsequently her mother’s life and followed them until she was finally taken home permanently. She heard the stories of course, but she had no memory of being so bold. For Tsuki, her parents were her parents, as long as she could think.

There had been biological parents of course, at some point at least. They might have died in the war or lost her or she might have come from a completely different village and ended up in Konoha in the aftermath of the chaos. Tsuki didn’t know and she never cared. She knew her father had asked most major clans if they missed a child and nobody had. Nobody knew who she was, where she came from and why that giant falcon was following her like a trained pet dog.

Tsuki did not think of clans or last names when she was a child. She was Tsuki, her father was her father and her mother was her mother. Of course she knew that there was some weight behind it, being a Hatake. The daughter of the Hokage, the village hero. But while people did follow her with their eyes, they did not whisper. Not like they did about Obito.

She did not remember the birth of her little brother very well. Just his little hands grabbing her hair when he was already a few months old. As children, Tsuki loved her little brother. Loved how when he crawled he chased her, how when he walked she held him, how when he talked he said her name as the first word.

But when she got older she realised people spoke about Obito in hushed tones. That they mentioned his name with admiration and adoration. He was a Hatake, he was an Uchiha, he was the son of the Hokage. People had followed Tsuki too, but they had always added “adopted” when talking about her. She was an adopted Hatake, an adopted daughter. 

It was clear quickly that Obito was not as talented as she was. Chakra usage came easy to Tsuki, she figured out how to mould it and climb trees when she was four years old, which was even earlier than her father did, at least according to what he said himself. Obito on the other hand was a weak, crying sort of boy, scared of bugs, the dark, the storms, the lightning and many other things. Tsuki spent nights laying next to him to calm him down and she knew he was also regularly climbing in their parents bed to get comfort from them.

But still, once Tsuki reached academy age, people talked about Obito as if he was going to be the next village hero. She’d not thought about clans and last names, Uchiha was the name of Itachi-san and Sasuke-nii and Ren and Takeshi, Uchiha was not a quality seal that made you extraordinary. But apparently it did, because people expected Obito to be great just by virtue of his bloodline - a  bloodline Tsuki technically did not share.

It did not matter that she was outstanding at the academy, because, as the other kids would not tire of telling her, she was just adopted. Her father would say that she had her talents from him, but they weren’t related in the slightest, so how could he claim such a thing? Behind her back the other people in her class would whisper about her, call her a “fake”, giggle when she introduced herself as a Hatake. Fake, fake, fake, fake.

Once Obito joined the academy it was even worse. While the teachers generally were nice to Tsuki and praised her with words like “As expected from the daughter of Kakashi-sama!”, the other children would immediately say that the only child of the Hokage was a son and he was not in their year. Not in front of Iruka or Shino-sensei of course, just close enough to Tsuki so she could hear it. Obito wasn’t as talented in the academy either, but he would inherit the white Hatake chakra and the sharingan and that was enough for people to see him as a prodigy.

Miu was born while Tsuki was in her third or so year of academy. A girl, with silver hair and grey eyes just like their father had. She’d be visibly connected to the Hatake clan and nobody would ever question her connection to the Hokage, but Tsuki had dark skin and brown hair and stuck out like a sore thumb.

Maybe she should have told her parents about the way other kids were treating her, or the teachers, or anyone that was a little older and could understand how she felt, but Tsuki said nothing and bore it badly. The frustration over being a “fake” led her to let out her anger on Obito. Her little brother, whom she’d loved so much as a kid, now felt like the reason for all her misfortune. Rationally, she knew he didn’t do anything wrong and that he hadn’t asked to be admired the way he was, but she could not stop herself.

They offered her to graduate a year earlier than other children and while her father was very sceptical of an early graduation, as it had brought him nothing but additional stress, Tsuki begged for it. Part of her hoped in secret that getting assigned a team and a teacher would help with the bullying. All she wanted was to leave school behind and find her own way.

She was the best in her new team, by a large margin and it was clear that the others didn’t like that very much. Her father would say that he too had issues with his teammates at first and her mother would tell her to hang in there, but Tsuki wanted out as soon as she was in. Her hopes that with a team she would easily fit in and be accepted quicker was crushed quickly.

Tsuki tried. She tried holding back. She stopped talking. She held the anger on her inside until she could get home where she unloaded on Obito. It got harder day by day and she still endured. In hindsight she thought that maybe made it worse. If she had just stood her ground and said her piece, maybe her teammates would have left her alone.

The day she regretted more than any other day started with a failed mission. One of her teammates had alerted their target on their position and almost sold them out to the opponent. Tsuki had rushed in and saved him, but let the target get away because of it. Now her team was mad at her for not following the instructions and failing them the mission. Her repeated insistences that the other guy could have died if she hadn’t stepped in they kept blaming her.

So she got back home in a foul mood and barked at her mother when she asked her in a friendly manner to train with Obito in the garden. Ever since they were children Obito and Tsuki had been training together and before Tsuki had stopped looking at him and started actively avoiding him, these spars had been enjoyable and fun, especially when their parents were watching. But now they were a chore Tsuki would have loved to skip and judging from his face Obito hated them too.

But she was angry and moody and couldn’t wait to let her anger out on someone, so she agreed to train him and though Obito was defensively saying “I will just wait for Dad to get home” their mother just waves with her hand “Nonsense, Tsuki is a very talented teacher.” The siblings went outside accordingly.

Obito wielded a staff just like their mother had back when she was still an on duty kunoichi. He could induce it with lightning, which he got from their father, or fire, which was something given to him from the Uchiha clan. Tsuki spit on the ground before pulling her tantou and going in. Obito blocked, but he was weak, he had never been stronger than her, especially not when she was serious. She knocked the staff out of his hands in one go, then turned to kick him backwards.

He wasn’t stupid, by now he was almost at the edge of graduation himself, so he collected himself and signed for a Fireball with his fingers. “You Uchiha have nothing to offer other than spitting fire” Tsuki jeered as if she had met many of them and not just learned about them in her academy days. The fireball didn’t touch her more than it made her feel warm as she shot past it, water jutsu shooting like bullets out of her fingers. He just wasn’t any match for her.

Lightning sizzled between his fingers and it was clear that he tried to counter her water that way, but Tsuki knew her brother too well and knew well enough that his own lightning nature worried him. Too many nights had she spent next to him when he was crying during thunderstorms. Still, he bit his lip, made a brave face and launched towards her again. Tsuki blocked her tantou without much issue. Her free left hand pushed her brother’s face into the ground beneath them.

“Fancy names alone don’t make good shinobi, Uchiha” she jeered another time and Obito whined a little. He looked up with the dark eyes of her mother, the black of most other Uchiha too. He had her hair colour and their father's hair, he had their mother’s eyes and their fathers chakra nature. He had everything, everything that Tsuki never had just because her blood did not align with the name on a paper. She hated and envied him for equal measures.

She punched him. She punched him again. “T-Tsuki..” Obito whined again and looked up. The crybaby. The boy who can do nothing and still has the world open to him. The not- fake child. She hit him again. There was blood on his face. What was it about him that made the world go so mad with admiration? She had tried, she had tried at all points in life. She had saved her teammate as she was supposed to and they had called her a loser for it. They would have hated her too if she had just let him die. Dizzily and out of control he punched into the boy’s face.

“Tsuki!” 

Her mother’s voice ripped through her clouded mind. Tsuki’s eyes darted up and suddenly could see clear again. Obito was crying, he was bleeding, he had raised an arm over his face to shield himself and when he finally let it down Tsuki could see the bruises she had left on it. There was something else though, his eyes were no longer black. He had red eyes, red eyes like her mother had shown her she had. The sharingan. She took a step back and let go of her brother.

Sayuri jumped in and picked the boy up. “What do you think you are doing?” she screamed at Tsuki who heard only ocean waves in her ears. A sharingan activated in heavy emotional trauma they had said. Heavy emotional trauma. She had pushed her brother so far that she had traumatised him. It was her fault that he was this injured. It was her fault. She didn’t dare look at her mother or her hands.

“I- I’m sorry” Tsuki pressed out without looking up. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I - I should.. I should leave.. Forever.” That made her look up. Her mother cradled Obito in her arms. Obito, the son that she’d always overprotected. Her real son, not a fake like Tsuki was. And though she still felt hate and regret she also felt the envy again. “I never belonged in this family. You all knew it” she spit and turned to run before everybody could see the tears.

The worst hours of her life ensued. She couldn’t stop looking at her fingers, the blood that was dried up between them. Her head kept replaying Obito’s crying face, the sharingan colour and his whine, his pleas for her to stop were in her ears. It wasn’t his fault. He’d never been someone who bragged with who he was, quite the opposite, Obito was annoyingly unbraggy about his father or his heritage.

Tsuki cried for him and for herself, for their lost relationship that had been destroyed by her own insecurities. Maybe it was just as well if she’d disappeared. Maybe her parents would have it easier without her. Obito and Miu, they would grow up happy and healthy. She knew the stories of her mother, that she had run away from home as a kid and survived. Tsuki was older and smarter than her mother was at that age so this was a valid option for her. Maybe somewhere out there she’d find her real family - a clan name that actually belonged to her.

Before she could do any of that she was gripped at the back of her shirt and lifted up like a little cat who had been misbehaved in front of their mother. Tsuki didn’t have to look up to know who it was. Her father had this way about him when he was trying to show authority; she'd seen him do it often enough to herself, her siblings or the elders of the village. He was calm but firm and often knew the right thing to say to calm situations down.

“Found you,” he said and when Tsuki finally looked up into his grey eyes they were harder than she’d ever seen them. How quickly had mom contacted him, she wondered. Probably as fast as she could. Her father must have hurried from work to get her. According to where the sun was, it was much too early for him to be able to go home. “Obito is fine.” She averted her eyes again in shame.

Dad sighed as if there was heavy burden on his body, then he pulled her over his shoulder like a large sack of rice and said: “Let’s go.”

“Wh-where?” Tsuki asked, but her father was already jumping from tree to tree. She had rarely seen him in action and while he had carried her a lot when she was a kid, he was now much older and she was much heavier. She turned so she could climb on his back to make his running easier and he invited it, he even gave her a smile over his shoulder. 

Tsuki didn’t know where they were going. “He isn’t injured greatly, what scared him more was the sudden appearance of the sharingan.” Her father spoke unprompted as if he knew exactly her worries. “Your mother is confused as to what happened. I will have you explain it to her later.”

She could say that there wouldn’t be any later, that she would run away as soon as he’d let her go.  She looked up and her eyes caught his again only to look away. Finally her father’s steps slowed down and finally he turned to enter the city archive. She didn’t dare ask what they were doing here, so she just clung to his back and let him walk through and greet all the workers here. She felt ashamed that people had to see her father with her, the fake child, instead of one of the real ones.

They went into the cellar and this is where her father let her down. “Why” he said, while rummaging through papers behind him, “Were you so angry?”

“I .. wasn’t angry at him,” Tsuki admitted. “Just, at the idea of him.”

Kakashi’s eyes flickered over to her and there was the stern face again, the aura of authority that made her shiver each time she saw it. HIs eyes softened immediately though. “I didn’t ask if you were angry at your brother. I asked what was the reason you were angry.”

It was clear that Kakashi already knew. Maybe her teacher had told him, maybe a witness had. Word travelled fast in Konoha especially when it contained news about a child linked to someone well known. The loud demeanour of Naruto���s first born son boruto were well documented and he was still a small child.

“I failed a mission”, she said truthfully. “One of.. One of the others almost got themselves killed and I… I stepped in and saved him, but that meant the target got away. Now they are blaming me.” Her father whistled a little and Tsuki did not quite understand why.

He put two things on top of each other. Then: “How is that related to Obito?” Tsuki squirmed. Surly word had gotten to her father somehow, but she had never spoken to her parents about any of this. “I’m just jealous of him.. He is… a real Hatake and I’m …. just adopted.”

That was when her father went “Ah!” and pulled some scrolls from the archives. He walked over to his daughter and handed it to her. “Please read this.”

She opened it with shaking hands, now knowing what would appear beneath. First thing that fell out was a tiny picture of a person she recognised as her grandfather sakumo. He looked jaded and tired, more so than in the picture they had in their living room that showed him with her father as a child. She caught the picture and held it up but her father just repeated: “Read the scroll.”

It was a mission report. During the third ninja war Hatake Sakumo had been tasked to take out a squadron of Suna warriors. He was known for his most successful attack on Suna, which had taken out many special warriors from there and hence he was seen as an expert. So they had sent him again expecting nothing but the best results, but his backup team was cornered in a surprise attack and he had turned around and, instead of finishing the mission, defended the squad that was coming after him, no matter how much they had pleaded he should fulfil what he was sent to do. 

And yes, while this had led to the back up squad all surviving, the Suna squadron had also kept on doing their dirty work along the rice fields of the Land Of Fire’s farmers. Tons of food was lost and it had led to a small crisis. Food was invaluable in war time and Sakumo had directly caused a shortage of it. This, so the scroll's judgement, meant he had failed as a shinobi.

Tsuki looked up to her father and closed the scroll, the picture of her grandfather still in her hand. Obviously she had heard about the fate that awaited Sakumo, the deep rooted self hate and regret that lead to death by his own hand. Her father offered a hand and she put the scroll into it. 

“Do you think he was wrong?” Kakashi asked.

She didn’t think long about it. “No. He saved his team that he cared for. Sometimes the mission is not the most important. You've always said that.” This made Kakashi smile.

“Do you think the reaction of the saved squad was justified?” His eyes rested calmly on her.

“No.” She was determined. “He might have failed but he had his heart into it. They could have forgiven him with that in mind, I think. Instead they were just mean to him. It seemed like they were frustrated that they got into this dangerous situation in the first place and then just lashed out on the only actually talented person around.”

Her father watched her. “This happened to you today, did it not?”

The tears were in her eyes before she could stop it from happening. She looked up to find her father had stepped towards her. He pulled her in and let her head rest against his chest, while she cried. “They say I’m not a real Hatake” she cried and for the first time really talked about this heavy boulder on her chest. “They say I’m a fake. They keep saying it. Fake, fake, fake. They say you and- and mom don’t even like me. That I don’t belong to this family. I heard it so often that I - I think I started believing it too.”

She took a shaky breath. “And Obito - “ She couldn’t think of him without seeing his bloody face in front of her wet eyelids. “He has all of this that I wish I had. He looks like mom and fights like you and people never doubt which family he belongs to.” She sniffed and buried her head deeper. “But that’s not his fault. He didn’t - he didn’t do anything. And I was so terrible to him..”

“Tsuki” her father spoke warmly and went with his hand through her hair. “Can you please look at that picture you are holding of your grandfather.” She was confused, but did as she was asked. Sakumo Hatake looked tired, even sad, there were wrinkles around his mouth. He hadn’t been very old when he died, but he still looked like an old soul. The torment must have been almost unbearable.

Kakashi kneeled in front of her to look at the picture. “Can you see what he is wearing?”

“A tantou.” She looked closer. “My tantou.”

He nodded and pointed with a finger at it. “I gave you his sword that I could never swing after his death. It was mostly broken, but I had it mended for you once you showed promise in fighting. You have the only Hatake clan heirloom that we as a family own.” She felt like she would be crying every moment again. “I gave it to you, because you are my daughter, my eldest daughter. Because you are the child that will carry on the name of the clan as clan head. Not Obito or Miu, no it is the eldest child and that eldest child is you.”

“Dad..” Tsuki’s lower lip was shaking.

“Besides,” he continued, “your action today shows how well you have internalised the way we Hatake are. You mirrored your grandfather by instinct, even though you never met him. And I can tell you a secret, my dear..” He leaned forward to her. “I think you would be his favourite grandchild for that.”

The flood gates opened again. She pressed the picture to her chest and fell into her father’s arms. He stroked over her back soothingly. “I don’t care where you come from or who you were before you came to me, you are my daughter now. I gave you my house and my name and my techniques as a father should. You are my child and belong to my family, no matter what people say. Nothing will ever change that.” 

She crawled herself into his black vest. “You have to apologise to your brother though, and explain to your mother what happened.” Back to the stern parental figure, Tsuki thought and nodded as quickly as she could. “Of course.”

At home the air was cleared with many more tears by Tsuki, by Obito and their mother. Her mother had pulled Tsuki so close that she almost got no air and called her a “stupid girl” affectionately. Obito was mostly fine, his wounds had been quickly healed by Haruka while Tsuki had been away. While the day burned in Tsuki’s mind with only shame and regret and she felt determined to build up a better relationship with her brother from now on, they remained largely strangers until late in their teenage years after a long separation. 

#fanfiction things #oc: sayuri #oc: hatake tsuki #poor tortured girl

[orionangeline]

Yamato is OSHA compliant, Kakashi owes millions in fines, and the Sannin killed the safety inspector: how team sevens various teachers relate to safety laws

Honorable mention to Iruka using tired sensei voice on an inspector, Ebisu moonlighting as a snitch, and Teuchi who is never inspected due to being a favorite of the local inspector but is actually OSHA compliant anyway

#kakashi owes fines both for self endangerment and for tasing children #naruto #naruto shippuden #naruto crack

[themidnightguardian]

Day 7: Shaking Hands -- Iruka

pre-KakaIru | loosely canon compliant| Kakashi POV (even though Iruka's the whumpee) | Content Warnings: non-graphic mention of burned bodies, aftermath of explosion, mild injuries

Whumptober Masterlist

---

If Kakashi was being completely honest—a rarity in and of itself—then he had to admit that he had severely underestimated Umino Iruka.

It wasn’t necessarily because the man was a chuunin, or even just because he was a schoolteacher, though Kakashi would be lying if he said those didn’t play a part into his perception. But the majority of his opinion was formed second-hand on the word of his students who loved to extoll the virtues of their beloved Iruka-sensei. Even Sasuke, the prickly bastard, wasn’t immune to it. All three of Kakashi’s cute little genin held high opinions of Umino.

Because he was kind. Because he cared. Because he had guided them when other people hadn’t bothered.

All good qualities in an academy teacher, but not exactly ideal for a shinobi. And their little…altercation when Kakashi said he was going to sign up his team for the Chuunin Exams had only solidified his understanding of Umino. Yes, he was sharper-tongued than Kakashi had been led to believe, and louder, and nice wasn’t really a word he’d have used to describe the man, but underneath all that unexpected attitude was a soft heart.

There were, in Kakashi’s opinion, three main types of shinobi: those that reveled in the death and fighting and underhanded tactics, those that were good at their jobs because they were good at compartmentalizing, and those that just didn’t have the stomach for field work and were thus relegated to deskwork. Sure, the lines were a little blurred sometimes, but in general, Kakashi found that it was easy to pick out which shinobi were which.

And Umino Iruka was obviously the third sort.

Or, at least, that’s what Kakashi had thought until he’d been sent to retrieve Umino and his latest academy class who were reported to have been attacked by bandits on their field trip to one of the farms outside the village’s walls. Instead of finding a class full of terrified kids and their teacher held for ransom or worse, the first thing Kakashi saw was Umino standing mostly unharmed in the middle of a still-smoking field that looked like it had been the centermost point of a blast radius. The bandits—thirty of them, at least—were all in various states of consciousness.

Or rather, Kakashi thought as he got closer, there was one bandit still alive that had been on the very edge of the blast, and the rest were varying degrees of crispy.

Holy shit.

Umino, for his part, had a black smudge across his forehead that could have been either ash or ink, and no evident injury aside from a shallow cut on his shoulder. He didn’t even seem tired or scared, just irritated. When he caught sight of Kakashi, he raised an unimpressed brow before his expression cleared.

“Alright,” Umino called out, loudly. “Who can tell me what technique I used and why it worked?”

Kakashi frowned for a moment, unsure what was happening until slowly, one by one, academy students came piling out from behind the trees on the opposite side of the clearing.

One girl raised her hand. “Um, you used a…a barrier seal over yourself? And was it an explosive tag for the…the bandits?”

“Barrier seal, yes, Mina. But a regular explosive tag wouldn’t have caused this level of destruction.”

A small, gray-haired boy piped up, “Did ya modify it, sensei? Is that why it went all BOOM?”

“Koutarou, even if we’re outside, let’s try to keep our voices at a reasonable level. Good shinobi shouldn’t be too loud, okay?” Iruka waited until the boy nodded before continuing. “I didn’t modify an explosive tag. Once a seal is made, it can be very difficult to alter it. Often, it’s better to just make a new one from scratch.”

The kids were drawn into the conversation for another few minutes, having realized that Iruka had clearly made his own, personalized explosive tag on the fly, mid-fight, and Kakashi looked on, impressed not only by Umino’s apparent skill with sealing but also how the kids relaxed incrementally by the second the more he talked to them, distracted them.

After the kids had settled down enough to be escorted back and were safely in the village, Kakashi finally had a moment to observe Iruka alone. Without the kids around who needed him to be an unbeatable force, a beacon of safety, Iruka seemed infinitely more exhausted, all but drooping before Kakashi’s eyes.

“Maa, sensei, if you need the hospital—” Kakashi couldn’t help but suggest, but Iruka waved him off with an amused smirk.

“Nothing I can’t patch up myself, Hatake-san.” He heaved a sigh as he plopped down into the chair behind his desk, pulling out first aid supplies. It was then that Kakashi noticed the way his hands shook, almost unnoticeable except for the way that the box rattled in his trembling fingers.

Not my place to comment, Kakashi told himself. I don’t even need to be here. I should go report to the Hokage.

“Are you alright, sensei?” he asked instead, entirely without his permission. He couldn’t have said why he asked. Maybe it was because he knew Naruto, at least, would have wanted him to.

For a split second, Iruka looked at him, nose scrunching slightly in confusion. Then he looked down at his hands, back up to Kakashi, and snorted.

“It’s not nerves. Or residual adrenaline. Believe me, I’ve been in far worse situations. Though it would have been easier if the kids weren’t there; I’d like to think they listen to me, but in reality, a lot of them are still at the age where they want to play hero.” Iruka shook his head even as he applied an antiseptic to his shoulder wound, no flinching or hissing even though Kakashi knew it had to sting. Sometimes the disinfectant hurt worse than the initial injury. "No, it's from chakra exhaustion. Well, that and the blast."

Kakashi blinked. "What."

“A barrier seal can keep me from blowing myself up, but as you know, it’s not just the heat from an explosion you have to watch out for, but the force of the explosion, too. The barrier dampens it, but if it’s strong enough—” Iruka trailed off, shrugging his good shoulder.

Kakashi could fill in the blanks. Between the frankly huge radius and the state of the charred bodies, it must have been a hell of an explosion. The blowback from that had to have been intense, and the amount of chakra…well, he had no idea how much chakra Iruka had, but now that Kakashi was looking closer, he did look awfully pale compared to his typical warm complexion.

Getting hit with the full force of an explosion, even if you survived, was often enough to break bones, damage internal organs. Iruka seemed mostly fine, but Kakashi was hit with the sudden, absurd clarity that if Iruka was hurt and Kakashi didn’t bother to check, then Naruto was going to inevitably find out and probably go feral.

And the last person who had hurt Iruka that Naruto had gone feral on was Mizuki. Who was dead now.

(Not that Naruto had killed Mizuki, of course. T&I had done that once the interrogation was over. But they’d hardly needed much of an interrogation considering the condition Mizuki had been in after Naruto had finished with him.)

And then there were also the lethal sad blue eyes. Kakashi wanted to avoid those at all costs.

“Sensei,” Kakashi said carefully, inching towards Iruka in case the man tried to refuse. Kakashi was not above abducting him. “I really think you ought to at least get someone to check you over.” When Iruka hesitated—really, he looked like he was going to yell—Kakashi hurried to add, “Naruto would want to know you’re taking care of yourself.”

Iruka’s mouth snapped shut, but he pinned Kakashi with a glare. “Fine.” It was a very nice glare. Pretty, almost, despite the fury. Or maybe because of the fury. Huh. Well. Nothing new there. Kakashi had always been attracted to people who could seriously fuck his shit up. He just hadn’t known until today that Iruka was one of them.

#whumptober2022 #no.7 #Shaking Hands #naruto #umino iruka #hatake kakashi #kakairu

[irenedracobunny]

omg please tell me about the crossover (i had an idea myself where etho meets obito before all the akatsuki die and shenanigans ensue)

Well, it started because I couldn't find any good Naruto/Hermitcraft crossovers on ao3. I knew what I wanted to read, so I started thinking about it. Making Etho and Kakashi twins was the obvious first step.

And then I went, what if I have Etho as team 7's sensei? Instead of the human shaped mess of trauma that is Kakashi, the team is being taught by a man who is quite possibly the living incarnation of chaos.

Etho and Iruka were (and possibly still are) pranking buddies. They met while setting up pranks in the same area and promptly became best friends.

When meeting team 7, Etho has a few extra introductory questions. In addition to name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, and goals, he also asks for one thing they're good at, one thing they're bad at, and one thing they want to learn. And then he has the kids chase him all over the village. The kids end up bedraggled and dirty, and one of them fell into a trash heap. Etho looks like he went for a nice jog.

I have more, because this idea has been fermenting in my brain for a while now, but it's late here and I am tired. I will continue this tomorrow.

#hermitcraft #etho #naruto #kakashi #naruto x hermtcraft