Chapter Text
That’s a fucking kid, is the first thing that Iruka thinks.
That’s the fucking jinchuriki, is the second.
The first thought comes back, even stronger, overwhelming him with outrage, with fury, with a sick sort of disgust, and now it comes out as a shouted,
“That’s a fucking kid.”
The two shinobi who are standing over the little blonde kid look over at him. They certainly don’t pale, or even step back, but Iruka’s anger is enough that they stop.
The little blonde kid kicks the taller one in the shins and darts off between their legs.
He’s fast, and red faced with impotent anger and held back tears. Iruka catches him round the collar as he tries to run past, startling an ark sound out of the kid. There are six thin scars on his face, like a very big cat took some swipes at him.
Or a fox, Iruka thinks, and feels sick.
“Who the hell are you?” the shorter shinobi sneers.
Iruka squares his shoulders. “He’s a kid,” he says. “Back off.”
“Yeah?” The taller one says. “He’s a monster.”
They don’t come any nearer, however, just stand and glare and puff out their chests at a fucking child. Iruka’s known for his weekly tea with the Saindame. And, before that, his vicious pranks. They won’t run the risk of him tattling, or of becoming a target. Iruka is near shaking in his anger, something big and hurt and protective swelling in his chest.
He’s still got a hand on the kid’s collar.
Good god. He can’t be more than four or five.
He’s starting to build up a head of steam though, yelling half baked threats and swinging tiny fists at Iruka’s thigh. He’s more likely to bruise his knuckles on a kunai tucked into his thigh wrappings than anything else.
Iruka shoots one last furious glance at the two shinobi, and starts to drag the little blonde kid down the street.
“Let me go-“ howls the kid.
“You hungry?” Iruka says. “I was gonna get ramen.”
He’s not really sure what possessed him to say it, other than there’s something fragile about the kid’s skinny wrists, the crumpled up chin that says he still wants to cry, and a sudden memory of himself, being young and hungry and scared as all hell.
The kid snaps his mouth shut like a letterbox. “Are you buying?” He says suspiciously, peers up at him with blue eyes made bluer by red rims.
“Yeah,” Iruka says, hides a wince. He can’t afford it, not really, but he’ll pick up some extra missions or something this week, or eat rice for his next few meals. “Of course.”
“Well, that’s okay then,” the kid says, suddenly brightening up. His grin is downright cheerful, and when he smiles up at Iruka, that big, protective swelling in his chest twists, and twists hard.
God, he’s just a kid.
They head into Ichiraku, whose proprietor gives the kid a startled, almost scared glance. Iruka glares at him, says loudly, “Two bowls, please,” slaps money down on the table. Even though he wants to slap down a kunai instead.
To the proprietor’s credit, he doesn’t say a word, just serves up two steaming bowls quickly and then turns to deal with other customers.
The kid wolfs down the food like he’s starving, and for all Iruka knows, he might be. He eats his at a slower pace, knowing it might be the last decent food he’ll have for a while. He’s only about half done with the kid finishing slurping the broth.
“Hey,” Iruka says, pausing with his chopsticks to the side. “What’s your name?”
The kid shoots him a glance, and he should be suspicious, should be wary, and there’s nothing there but contentment and pleasure at not being hungry. “I’m Naruto Uzumaki!” He says, grins at Iruka. One of his front teeth is chipped. “What’s yours?”
“I’m Iruka.” Iruka says. “Do you get harassed like that often?”
Naruto’s sunny smile fades. Heart on his sleeve, Iruka thinks. Not a great thing for a shinobi. He should know.
“Sometimes,” Naruto says, looking incredibly shifty. “Usually I just beat them up, because I’m super strong and everything!”
“Oh, are you?” Iruka says, amused despite himself.
“Yeah!” Naruto says, straightening up in his seat and practically vibrating with excitement. At least he bounces back fast. “I’m gonna be the greatest ninja ever one day, and become Hokage, and protect the entire village! You better believe it!”
“I believe it,” Iruka says, and he’s grinning just at the kid’s sheer endurance.
“You better!” Naruto says. He’s getting antsy now as Iruka finishes off his bowl, eyes darting towards the door.
“You can go if you want,” Iruka says, raising his eyebrows, and Naruto almost immediately slides off his stool. “But- hey! Naruto!”
The boy pauses halfway through the curtain, looks back at Iruka with wide blue eyes. Iruka forgets whatever the hell he was going to say, blurts out instead, “If anyone bothers you again, come find me, okay?”
“Okay, Iruka-san!” Naruto says, flashes one more blinding grin, and then is gone, the curtain flapping a little in his wake.
Iruka turns back to his bowl of ramen, pushes around a few leftover bits and bobs in the last of the broth. He scoops up one of the tiny whirlpool pieces, frowns at it like it’ll give him some insight into- whatever the hell just happened.
The demon fox in that little boy. Evil shoved into a too thin blue eyed box.
Iruka folds his arms on the counter, hunches his shoulders. He really doesn’t need another pet project. That’s what Mizuki calls them- his too soft underbelly. His bleeding heart. He’s all responsible now, and no fun. God forbid Iruka just decided to grow up-
But, again-
Iruka’s mind flashes back on the defiant, teary eyed child being menaced by shinobi fifteen years his senior. For something he didn’t do, something he didn’t ask for. Who the hell is taking care of Naruto Uzumaki?
He pushes back from the counter decisively, careful not to let the stool screech against the floor. He has his weekly tea with the old man tomorrow. He’ll ask then.
“No one?” Iruka says in shock, staring at the Sandaime.
“He has an ANBU guard at all times, of course,” the Hokage says calmly, sipping his tea. His eyes are sharp, however. It still doesn’t stop Iruka from bursting out with,
“Hokage-sama, he’s five.”
“I cannot interfere with the jinchuriki,” the Hokage says, and there’s meaning there that Iruka cannot parse, not now. Not when he’s still staring at the old man with something hot and tight closing his throat.
“He’s a child.”
“I seem to remember you turned out alright,” the Hokage said, taking another sip of tea. His eyes never leave Iruka’s. Iruka puts down his cup, is pleased when it doesn’t rattle even though his hands ache with control it’s taking not to let them shake.
“Hokage-sama,” Iruka says tightly. “I was an orphan of the demon fox. I was left alone, and hungry, and cold, all the time. I would not call that being alright.”
An ANBU guard slides into Iruka’s peripheral vision. Despite his best efforts, his chakra is slipping out of his control, sending up bright flares of distress, anger, betrayal.
Iruka grits his teeth. “Well, you helped with the hunger part,” the Hokage says. Takes another slip.
Right. The ANBU guard he just mentioned. The Hokage probably gets daily reports on Naruto.
“If he’s got a guard, why the hell is being bullied by adults?” Iruka asks. “Full grown shinobi picking on some little kid.”
“They’re not meant to interfere,” the Hokage says, his voice turning sharp. “Iruka, we cannot interfere.”
“Of course,” Iruka says. Cold and blank, like a proper shinobi. “If you will excuse me, Hokage-sama.” He turns his head, stares directly at the ANBU who stands, still and watchful, by the window. “ANBU-san.”
He stands and leaves without waiting to be dismissed.
The Hokage and the ANBU both watch him go, silent.
“What do you think?” The Hokage says after a moment.
The ANBU stays silent.
“Oh, come now,” the Hokage says, a smile playing around his mouth. “He’s a good boy, you know. He cares a lot about Konoha, and its people. All of them.”
A moment passes. “He was the one who put all those tags in the Mission Desk.”
“The exploding colored powder?” The Hokage smiles. “Yes. And the sinkhole in front of the ANBU staircase.”
“Hawk got caught in that.”
The Hokage snorted. “Any ANBU who would fall for a trivial prank like that deserves it.”
The ANBU stays silent. The Hokage sighs. “Very well. Dismissed, Hound.”
There’s a bare flicker in the air- no swirling wind, no dead leaves- and the Hound is gone.
The Saidame leans back in his seat, fishes out his pipe. Behind the flame of the quickly struck match, there is a twist to his mouth that could be a smile, could be regret.
There is a small dog at his feet when Iruka turns around.
Iruka doesn’t startle, per se, but he certainly goes quite still for a moment. The dog is just sitting at his feet, staring at him in a way that precludes normal animal intelligence.
“Whose dog is that?” Mizuki says, frowning down at the little thing. It’s a pug, a few silver hairs around it’s squished in nose, kind of ugly. Iruka kind of likes it.
“No clue,” Iruka says. It’s wearing a blue hitae-ae, which marks it as a dog of a Konoha shinobi, but that’s all.
Iruka looks around for the Inuzuka he expects to be nearby, but it’s really just him and Mizuki outside the mission desk.
Mizuki shrugs, apparently dismissing the dog. “You wanna grab some food?” He says, “I’m starving.”
“Alright,” Iruka says slowly, but he’s still looking at the dog. There’s something weird about it, and Iruka’s instincts as a shinobi are good enough that something is pinging him about the dog. Something important.
He takes a step forward, and the dog gets up and very gingerly puts its teeth around the loose fold of Iruka’s pants.
He doesn’t wring it like he’s trying to play, just closes his mouth around it like a retriever holding an egg.
“Uh,” Mizuki says. “Why’s it biting you?”
“It’s not biting me,” Iruka corrects automatically. The dog takes a small step backward, and tugs carefully at the pant leg.
“What’s it doing then?”
“I have no idea. Maybe it wants me to follow it?” Iruka says uncertainly, but at that the dog release Iruka, sits back, and lets out a small yip.
“Well, I don’t have the time to run around after ugly little dogs,” Mizuki says, and there’s an undercurrent there that says he doesn’t think Iruka should either.
“Well, I’m just gonna check it out,” Iruka says.
“Someone’s probably just trying to get back at you for some prank,” Mizuki says, disapproval written over his face.
Iruka shrugs, lets a nasty grin of his own spread over his own face. It doesn’t fit there as well as it used to. “Then I’d like to see them try.”
Mizuki laughs at that, claps him on the shoulder. “Alright, alright, I’ll see you later,” he says, and flickers off in a frankly wasteful use of chakra.
Iruka sighs, lets the grin fade off his face. Turns back to the little dog. “Alright,” he says. “You’ve got my full attention. Please don’t lead me into certain doom.”
The little dog yips again, turns and trots off.
They don’t walk long, or, at least, not long enough that Iruka begins to get suspicious.
They’re in a familiar neighborhood, now, one Iruka frowns as he recognizes, and then there’s a brief flare of chakra, and the dog and Iruka break into a run at the same time.
There are three shinobi in the alleyway when he rounds the corner at full sprint, and then there are none a moment later.
Just a small blonde child with bloody knuckles and clenched fists, tears streaking his face.
“Naruto?” Iruka says at the start of the alley, hesitant.
Naruto looks up, stiff necked and teeth bared. He sees Iruka and just sort of- deflates, crumpling in against the wall and hiding his face in his knees, scraped elbows wrapping around himself.
“Seven hells,” Iruka says, winces. Naruto doesn’t appear to have heard him however, is still sniffling in way that sort of breaks Iruka’s heart. He’s taking in big, gulping gasps of air, like he’s desperately trying to stay quiet, to stop crying.
Iruka walks over to him, crouches. Naruto’s sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up to his chest, his hands scrubbing at his cheeks in an almost angry way, and he’s still taking those awful, shuddering breaths. It’s more like an adult having a panic attack, or a PTSD flashback, than the way a child usually cries.
“Hey,” Iruka says, gentle as he can, and Naruto flinches.
That’s really what makes up Iruka’s mind, even if it’s not a conscious thing, at the moment. The way Naruto flinches back, the way his elbow comes up a little.
“Oh, hell,” Iruka says, and he can’t help it that his voice breaks a little, too. “Naruto, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay, I promise. Come here.”
Naruto sucks in a breath, looks up, suspicious and angry, brows furrowed and mouth pressed together in a tight, wobbling line. Iruka opens his arms, palms flat and open, no threat, no threat, no threat.
He’s unprepared for the way Naruto flings himself at Iruka, skinny little arms wrapping around Iruka’s neck and burying his face there. Iruka sits down with a thump and a faint ‘oof’ with the force of it. He wraps his arms around Naruto, a little unsure, guided by half forgotten, hazy memories of what his own mother did when he was upset, rocking childish fears away.
One hand strokes hesitantly up and down Naruto’s spine and the boy just breaks.
Huge, full bodied sobs wrack his frame as he no longer tries to hold them back, and there’s tears and snot all over Iruka’s shoulder, which is gross in a distant sort of way.
For now, Iruka just holds on, keeps up that steady, slight rocking, stares sightlessly over Naruto’s shoulder, trying to keep his own tears from spilling over.
What is he doing?
Iruka doesn’t really have an answer, just that he has to. He has to, because no one else is fucking doing anything.
The only reason Iruka knows the ANBU arrives is because they drop down directly in front of him, completely soundless. No chakra pinging off of his, no disturbance of the air.
Iruka stares up at the white mask from his position on the ground. It doesn’t give anything away, which he guesses is sort of the point.
Naruto is still crying into his shoulder, his hands still fisted in the back of Iruka’s vest, but the first few moments of fierce wailing have abated. He’s crying more like a child should, which is a sentence Iruka hates that he thinks.
Iruka wonders if the ANBU guard was summoned because of the emotional distress of the child, or the chakra he was giving off.
The ANBU tilts his head, a peculiarly bird like motion that doesn’t sit well with his mask. There’s a gathering of tension, like he’s about to leave again, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he flashes a field sign at Iruka, the one asking about a shinobi’s injuries. Status report. It’s probably the closest thing he’s got to asking if Naruto’s okay.
Iruka swallows. The ANBU are still the bogeyman of Konoha, and he’s not exactly well liked by most of them. The sinkhole trap looms large in his mind. Still. He’s asking if Naruto’s okay.
Iruka sighs, very gently, and says in a murmur, “I’m going to stand up now, okay?” It’s really as much for the ANBU’s benefit as it is for Naruto’s, but Naruto still manages a weak nod into Iruka’s wet shoulder, still hiccuping sobs.
It takes a second for Iruka to get his feet under him and stand up, hampered as he is by the pins and needles in his legs from Naruto sitting on his lap and the fact that he refuses to let go of Naruto to use his hands.
The ANBU does not help, but watches.
When he’s finally standing, he’s got one hand cradling the back of Naruto’s blonde head, staring warily at the ANBU. “Naruto,” Iruka says, quietly, “do you wanna come back with me and get cleaned up?”
It’s half a question for the boy, half asking permission.
Naruto nods once more, and the sobs are trailing off into sniffles, the tension in the little body slowly leaking out of him. Iruka doesn’t think about how Naruto feels lighter than he should be.
Iruka gives a short nod to the ANBU, who just- disappears. No swirl of wind, no dried leaves at his feet. Just the barest flicker of chakra, whispering at the edges of Iruka’s understanding, and then nothing. Naruto doesn’t even lift his head.
“Okay,” Iruka says, voice shaking a little. “Okay.”
Naruto is startlingly pliant. Iruka gets him back to his block and up the creaky stairs to his little apartment in decent time.
He hesitates when he kicks the door shut behind him. He can lock the door with Naruto still gathered up in his arms like this, and he does, but he can’t re-set any of his wards without both hands and at least some of his concentration free.
He’s still staring at his door in some consternation, frozen with indecision in the middle of his living room, when his window slides open.
The ANBU is back.
He doesn’t wait to get permission to enter, just slides in like an unusually graceful ghost.
They stare at each other for a moment, and once again Iruka is struck by the knowledge that the only reason that he knows the ANBU is here, the only reason that he saw him enter, is because the ANBU wanted him too. His main wards aren’t up, but he still has some basic ones sitting around the entrance points, and a barrier seal or two around the entire apartment. It is unnerving to think that they just slid past all that.
Still. If the ANBU is here, there’s no reason not to refocus his attentions on the little kid who just rests like a dead weight, exhausted, in his arms.
Iruka gives another one of those short nods to the ANBU, one that hopefully says, you’re in charge out here, and marches to his little bathroom.
Iruka doesn’t turn around to see, but he gets a strange feeling of bemusement for a moment.
It’s only when he shuts the cheap, thin door to the bathroom behind him with his foot that he realizes it must have come from the ANBU.
Iruka gets Naruto cleaned up, in fresh, albeit oversized and worn, dug out from Iruka’s closet, clothing and in bed in fairly short order. He was going to try and get some food in the kid too, but he was almost falling asleep as Iruka tugged the big t-shirt over his head, eyes drifting closed longer and longer each time he blinked.
Instead, Iruka scooped him and put him in his own bed, pulling the sheets up around his ears. When he turns to leave, a small hand snagged the back of his shirt.
Iruka crouches by the bed, bringing him eye level. “What’s up, kid?” He says, voice soft.
“You’re really nice.” Naruto says, words near slurred. He cried himself to the point of exhaustion. “Why are you so nice?”
Iruka gave him a smile he hoped didn’t look too fake, even though anger bloomed through him at the words. All he did was give the kid a bath and a place to sleep. That wasn’t being nice. That was the bare minimum for taking care of a human being. The bare minimum for taking care of a dog. “Sleep, Naruto,” he says instead. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”
“Promise?”
Iruka closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, voice rough. “I promise.”
The little hand unlatches and Iruka stays down there, crouched, even when his thighs start to burn, until Naruto’s breathing reaches the slow, deep rhythm of true sleep.
As he leaves the room, not latching the door so he can hear if Naruto wakes up, Iruka feels very old, suddenly, very old and very hurt and very young and very helpless.
The ANBU in his living room is still there. They haven’t moved a muscle.
Iruka comes to stand opposite them and folds his arms, glaring at the expressionless white mask.
“And who might I be talking to, ANBU-san?” He says, his voice very quiet and very cold. His temper is roiling, just underneath the surface, only the sleeping child in the next room keeping him from yelling. Or throwing things.
That little bird like tilt. “Are you asking my identity, Iruka-san?”
Iruka purses his lips, glares harder. “Your code name will be fine, ANBU-san,” he says, all furious politeness.
A pause.
“Hound,” the ANBU says finally. The mask doesn’t look quite like a dog, not to Iruka, but he’s certainly not here to bash the ANBU’s artistic skills. Their protective duty ones, however…
“And why was Naruto in such a state when I arrived, Hound-san?” Iruka says, sharp.
“People can be quite cruel,” Hound says, flat. A fact. Like he’s bored of the conversation already.
“And you let…people…be that cruel to a child?” Fury, rising in his throat, turning his face red. Iruka clenches his fist, nails biting into his palm. He needs to cut them.
“I cannot interfere,” Hound says.
“So you just let someone hit a child,” Iruka hisses.
The ANBU is very still, and does not say a word.
“How is that protecting him,” Iruka says, voice rising a notch. There’s a faint noise from the back, and Iruka instinctively throws a glance over his shoulder. Naruto doesn’t emerge however, and Iruka relaxes minutely, turns back.
When he does, the ANBU is several steps closer, having halved the gap of space in between them. Sightless black eyeholes stare at him, look into his face, that tilt to the head like he’s trying to figure something out, or intimidate him.
Iruka glares back, holds his ground, even as a cold sweat breaks out in the small of his back.
“You came, didn’t you?” The ANBU says cryptically. There’s that minute flickering of chakra, and Hound is gone, leaving Iruka alone in the empty living room.
Iruka sits down on the little couch, stares at the wall. He’s got the jinchuriki asleep in one of his t-shirts, curled up in a too small ball in his bed. His last semester of teaching college starts next week. He’s nineteen fucking years old.
He cannot do this.
Iruka buries his head in his hands and, as quietly as he can, cries.
Hound perches in the tree outside Iruka’s apartment, swathed in shadows. He’s still enough that a moth lands on the mask, intrigued by the single square of reflected moonlight.
He watches Iruka Umino cry into his hands for a solid fifteen minutes, his shoulders shaking. The man is very emotional for a shinobi, but he is just a chunin. He’s having a hard time reconciling the horror stories he’s heard of the man’s traps with the reality of this man who lets children wipe their snot all over his flak vest, who cries in the dark of his tiny apartment.
After the fifteen minutes, however, Iruka presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, lets out a deep, trembling sigh. He stands up, finally slides off the flak vest that is, as mentioned, encrusted in kid mucus and tears. His shoulders are broad and sturdy, and his waist still has a thinness to it that speaks of youth and not eating quite enough.
He disappears from view for a moment, comes back into the living room and its worn kotatsu with a stack of books and papers, a pen stuck in his ponytail and another behind his ear.
Hound recalls from the brief that Iruka is in his last few courses at the teaching college, is due to start as an assistant in the upcoming semester.
Iruka drops the pile of materials off at the kotatsu, apparently getting ready to study, since his bed is currently occupied.
Before he does, however, he comes and stands by the window.
Hound knows Iruka cannot see him. His chakra is too well masked for that, and he’s too well hidden in these shadows. It is merely a logical conclusion that any guard would be perched here, with a direct line of sight into Iruka’s apartment and excellent views of the entrance to the building and the road.
It is still- disquieting, to see him come up to the window and stare out at the tree.
Hound watches as Iruka glares out- at him but not at him- and then his hands perform a quick, though not hasty, series of signs, before he slaps what looks like a seal down onto the window sill.
The window goes black, and the Hound twitches. Just a fraction of an inch, but it’s enough that the moth, still investigating the white mask, flaps off into the night.
The window stays dark, and there are now wards humming around the cheap little apartment that would not look out of place on a jounin’s apartment. Or on the Hokage tower.
Hound can still feel the pulse of chakra that is Umino Iruka, and the brighter, wilder one that is Naruto Uzumaki, that they are alive and well and not under duress, but that is all.
He feels the urge to open his other eye, peer at the house using his Sharingan, and pushes the want down sharply. There’s no need, and it’d be a waste of chakra.
Still.
Hatake Kakashi looks at the house, almost humming with seals, and wonders.