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The Killing Kind: Part 3

blah = japanese
~“blah”~ = flashback dialogue
blah = emphasis

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Iruka opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling as the previous night filtered back to him.

Somehow, Kakashi had gone from the spare bed to Iruka’s floor to Iruka’s bed, and Iruka hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself.

He remembered the thrill of having one of the most dangerous shinobi of the village at his mercy, writhing beneath him and gazing up with adoring eyes…the sound of his name falling sweetly from parted lips…a whispered mantra of aishiteiru.

He blushed, but it was a proud blush.

There were birds singing outside.

The sun was venturing out in white-gold patches through the ragged remains of stormclouds.

The air smelled of water and leaves.

And nestled up against him and tangled around him was a bundle of warm flesh that went by the name of Hatake Kakashi.

Life was good, Iruka decided, stretching a bit.  Kakashi grumbled something and tightened his arm around Iruka’s ribs.  With a grin, Iruka put his arms around his new lover and kissed him awake.

“Mmf,” Kakashi muttered articulately, eyes barely open.  “Too early…”

“I have students to teach.”

“So leave me out of it,” came the complaint.  Rolling over, Kakashi yanked a pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

Iruka shook his head.  “Well, just make sure you drop by the mission office to see about getting yourself properly reassigned.  And get that overprotective Higawa off my back—tell him I haven’t broken your heart, so he can’t break my arms.”

Kakashi mumbled something from under all the fluff and feathers, and flapped an arm in Iruka’s general direction.

Grinning, Iruka came around to the other side of the bed and ducked under the pillow that was hiding Kakashi’s face.  “Don’t sleep too long, lazy-bones,” he warned, kissing the corner of his lover’s mouth and idly tracing the long, pale scar over his Sharingan.

“If I do, it’ll be because you wore me out last night,” Kakashi retorted, grinning.

Iruka chuckled.  “I have to get ready.”  Then, with one last quick kiss, he left Kakashi to his slumber.

***

The Hokage stared at his folded hands.  “I won’t say I’m disappointed, Kakashi-kun; I owe you better than that.  I’m sorry that this wasn’t the path for you after all, and I’m sorry that you don’t feel that you are suited to the role of Hokage.  May I ask what brought on such a decision?  As the man whose successor you would have been, I would like an honest response.  Whatever you may say will remain between us.”

Kakashi considered for a moment.  “Well…there is someone very dear to me who would like for me to take life a bit slower.   But really, I don’t have the patience to run a whole village.”

Sarutobi’s brows shot up.  “Really?  I disagree.  I think you have all the necessary qualities in you.  You have the only truly necessary quality—the desire to protect the people of this village.  I think that quality has allowed you to complete missions that others might shy from.  However, if you do not believe yourself ready, then I must trust your judgement.  Well…do you suppose you could help train new genin?  With Kesako retiring, we’ll need another genin instructor.”

Kids.  He didn’t like kids.  He never knew what they were thinking, or how to treat them.

He ‘hmm’ed for a moment and scratched his hitai-ate.

It was slower.  And it was an important job.  Good genin became good chuunin, and good chuunin became good jounin.  Building a strong village started at the bottom, and working with three at a time was infinitely better than working with thirty.  He would never know how Iruka could stand it.

“All right,” he conceded finally.

“Yokatta,” Sandaime-Hokage said, smiling.  “Please tell Saika-san right away.”

Kakashi nodded and left.  At this time of day, Saika would be enjoying his break in the jounin lounge.  A few seals, long ago memorized, and he was there.

Okosa spilled his tea again.  “Damn you, Hatake!” he shouted.  “You’re as bad as my son!”

Kakashi just grinned.

“I’m just here to pay Saika-san a visit.”

Across the room, Saika looked up from his newspaper.  A bug crawled across the top of it.  “Oh?”

“Yes.”  Kakashi wandered over.  “I’ve officially resigned as A-Squad Anbu captain.  I’ll be training genin from now on.”

Okosa spat his tea this time.  “You what?!”

Kakashi gave him an innocent look.  “Resigned from my post.  I decided the other day, and I spoke with Hokage-sama about it just a few minutes ago.”

There was a long, stunned pause.  Slowly, Okosa reached to wipe up the mess he’d made.  Finally, he looked back up with narrowed eyes.  “This is about Umino.”

Scratching his hitai-ate, Kakashi feigned further innocence.  “Is it?  I don’t know…being an assassin is awfully dangerous work, and I’m not getting any younger…  I will say that you are not allowed to break poor Iruka-kun’s arms.”

“All right then,” Okosa grunted.  “Keep your secrets, assassin.”  He sighed.  “I thought for sure it’d be your face up on that mountain, next to Yondaime-sama’s.  I’d got myself all prepared for the shock and everything.  Do you really want to train genin?  Sousuke was nightmare enough at that rank—I can’t imagine what older ones would be like.”

Kakashi shrugged.  “They’re children.  How hard could it be?”

Okosa burst out laughing.  “You have no idea!”

At that moment, Anko walked in with a sandwich in her mouth.  “Mmf mm humph um?”

“Higawa is being asinine again,” Saika told her, going back to his newspaper.

Anko took her sandwich out of her mouth and swallowed.  “What’s…ass….assuh….what you said?”

“He’s being a smart-aleck,” Saika clarified.  “Hatake thinks dealing with children is easy, and Higawa finds that funny.”

She made a face.  “Kids suck, Kakashi-niisan.  They’re messy and noisy and dumb.  And they think they know a lot, when they really don’t.”

Okosa just laughed harder.

“Aren’t you still a kid, Anko-chan?” Kakashi teased.

“Blech!” she said, shaking her head.  “I’m nearly fourteen!  I’m not a kid.  I’ve had my hitai-ate for years and years now.”

“Oh, I see.”  He nodded placatingly.  She didn’t seem to notice that he was still teasing.  He shouldn’t, he knew—she’d been a jounin for almost a year now, and chuunin for a long time before that.  She’d been one of Orochimaru’s students, just as he had.

Having finally gotten his laughter under control, Okosa snorted and poured himself some more tea.  “Well, Sousuke is my son, and I don’t care how long he’s had that hitai-ate, a four year-old is still a kid.”

She waved a hand.  “Well, yeah!  Of course a four year-old is still a kid, but not a teenager like me, y’know?”

Kakashi scratched his hitai-ate again.  “I don’t know…  By the time I was six, I’d already killed a man, and that’s not such a big age gap.  I don’t really think I was a kid.  I had some stupid ideas, maybe, but even old men have stupid ideas about things.”

Okosa scowled.  “It was bad enough letting the little monster take the chuunin exam last year…”

“Well, you didn’t think he’d pass,” Anko said loftily, picking at her nails.  “It’s your own fault.  How long d’you think it’ll take him to find out there’s an open spot on the Anbu squads?”

“Don’t even say things like that!” Okosa scolded.  “You’re likely to—”

He was interrupted by a puff of smoke and a blond blur.

“Dad, Dad, Dad, guess what!”

Okosa glared at Anko.  Then he forced a smile and said, “What?”

Sousuke bounced excitedly.  “There’s an opening on the Anbu squads!”

Okosa glared at Anko some more, and she sheepishly scratched the back of her head.

“Itachi-san said so, so it must be true!  Can I take the exam, Dad?  Can I, can I?”

“No.  Absolutely not.”

“Aww, why not?!”

“You’re too young.”

Sousuke scowled, looking very much like his father except for the messy blond braids trailing in his eyes and over his shoulders.  “That’s dumb!  I’m a chuunin, and I’ve been a shinobi of the village since last year!  I can do it, Dad, I know I can!”

“No,” Kakashi said.  Another stunned silence ensued as all four of his companions turned to look at him.  He crouched in front of Sousuke and put a hand on his head.  “No, you don’t know.  It isn’t as glamorous as it sounds…being that high-rank just means that people expect a lot more out of you.  Too much for you, just yet, I think.  Your father thinks so too, and you should listen to him.  I know that Hokage-sama would agree with us both…you aren’t ready for Anbu.  I didn’t let go of that burden so that someone as young and promising as you would have to pick it up.”

Sousuke blinked his big green eyes.  “Kakashi-niisan?”

Kakashi grinned and ruffled Sousuke’s hair a little.  “Wait a few more years, grow up a bit more, become a jounin, and then we’ll see.  I’d bet good money that you’ll be one of the best Anbu the village has ever seen.”

“Really?  As good as Itachi-san?  As good as you?”

“Kitto.”

A slow smile crept onto the little boy’s face.  “Well…I guess I can wait a little, then.  Meanwhile, I’ll take all the B-rank missions I can.  That’ll show them how responsible I am.”

Kakashi nodded.  “Right.  For now, you should probably go train some more, so that you’ll always be in top condition.  Practice with your bloodline limit, eh?”

Sousuke nodded and teleported away.

“Thanks,” Okosa said, grudgingly.  “Since Kisa died, I can’t get him to listen to me.  She could always make him see reason.”  He shook his head.

Embarrassed, Kakashi rubbed the back of his head.  “Ah…well…you were treating him like a little kid, and he’s not.  He’s killed, same as you.  He’s done as many B-rank missions as any other chuunin.  He’s his mother’s son.  He deserved to hear the real reasons, you know?  You should have told him why you didn’t want him to do it…he’d understand.”

Staring into his teacup, Okosa nodded.  “You’re right.  I’ll talk to him later.”  He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.  “How is it that everyone knows how to raise my boy but me?”

“Don’t worry, Okosa-sama,” Anko soothed, patting his arm.  “I think you’re a good father.”

“I take advice from a pair of crazy genius teenagers,” Okosa protested.

Kakashi grimaced.  “Well…I won’t be a teenager after next week…and we give you good advice, don’t we?”

Anko nodded vigorously.  “We give you great advice!  That’s what friends are for.”

Okosa pinched the bridge of his nose.  “You really think he’ll be as good as Itachi?”

Kakashi nodded soberly.  “With elemental control over lightning, surgical control over his chakra, and the determination to use them both?  He’ll be quite a rival for Itachi, if he keeps up with his training.  Just look at him…when I was his age, I was still at the academy, and he’s already a chuunin.  Even Itachi can’t make that boast.”

“I don’t want him to end up like you,” Okosa said sharply.

Anko squawked and started to argue, but Kakashi just chuckled.

“I don’t want him to end up like me, either,” he admitted.  “Or like anyone of our generation.  We’ve had too hard a life.  Yondaime-sensei sacrificed himself with the hope that things would get better for the children of Konohagakure…not worse.”

Okosa rested his elbows on his knees.  “You’re probably right.  It may be bad luck to even mention it…but I think he’s just about figured out all of Kisa’s bloodline jutsu.  It’s scary to think that a boy that young will be able to summon a storm dragon…let alone the Great Thunder Dragon.”

Kakashi shrugged.  “About as scary as his crazy mother being able to do it.”

Glaring, Okosa pointed accusingly.  “You wouldn’t understand, you were practically raised by her and Rena-chan!  Two crazy genius girls bringing up a crazy genius boy!  It’s ridiculous!  Impossible!  Psychotic!”

Anko looked at Kakashi.  “I dunno, he seems okay to me…”

“A normal person like me stands no chance against a force such as that,” Okosa lamented, flopping over on the couch he was sitting on.

***

Two days later, Iruka was sitting on a stool in Ogata Reika’s office at the hospital, staring uneasily at the little placard on her desk that said ‘Head of Hospital’ in big, block-print kanji.

“I really wish you wouldn’t fret, Reika-san,” Iruka protested, just before having a thermometer shoved into his mouth.

“No arguing!” the head medi-nin admonished.  “A cold can become something far worse if you’re not careful.  You shouldn’t work yourself so hard, Umino-kun.”

“Hai-hai,” he relented with a grin.

“Do you think Kakashi would forgive me if I let his very best friend catch pneumonia or something?”  She took the thermometer out and frowned at it.  “I’d be a disappointment to Oneesama at the very least.”

He glanced absently out the window as she scribbled something down.

A bunch of kids were playing outside in the street.  They couldn’t be older than about seven.  They ran and giggled and screamed in glee, and Iruka smiled at their carefree attitudes.  A little blond boy ran up to them, and they drew back.

Iruka frowned.  He knew that spiky mane…

The demon vessel.  The kid who housed the monster that had ravaged Konohagakure.

One of the kids threw something, and suddenly they were all throwing things.  It was a riot in miniature.

It was scary how easily group mentality manifested in children.

“Not again…” Reika sighed, taking the thermometer from his mouth.

Iruka looked up at her.  “Shouldn’t you do something?”

She contemplated him for a moment.  “Why?  Do you think you should do something?”

He thought about the question.  Yes.  That was why he’d asked her.

“Go on,” she said. “Bring him back in, and I’ll fix him up.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than he had dashed out the door and out of the hospital.

“Hey!” he yelled.  “Cut that out!”

The kids looked up guiltily.  All they saw as a guy with a hitai-ate and a jounin vest.  They scattered like bugs.

The little blond kid was covered in dirt and bruises.

Once upon a time, Iruka would have been right beside the other kids, throwing dirt and rocks and worse things.  It wasn’t fair.  The kid wasn’t the demon—he’d been a baby when the fox attacked.  Worse still, they weren’t allowed to tell the boy about the demon, so he didn’t even know why those other kids had turned on him.

Sniffling a little, he stood up and brushed himself off.

“Are you okay?” Iruka felt the need to ask.

“I’ve had worse,” the kid grunted, straightening his shirt.  “I dunno why I keep trying…it’s always the same.  Even when I lived with Reika-san, it was the same.”

Iruka blinked.  The kid had lived with Reika?  Was he the reason Sandaime-Hokage had decided she wouldn’t care for any other children, even on a temporary basis?

“Um…hey, you should come inside and have those scrapes looked at,” Iruka said, gesturing vaguely to the building behind him.  “You wouldn’t want them to get infected, right?”

The kid shrugged.

“Uh, I’m Umino Iruka, by the way.  I teach at the Academy.”

“Naruto,” the kid muttered, walking toward the building.

“So, Naruto, have you started primary school yet?  How old are you?”

The grubby blond looked puzzled.  “Aren’t you scared of me?  Lotsa people wouldn’t even talk to me, you know.  Especially old people like you.”

Iruka winced at having the phrase ‘old people’ linked to him.  He was barely eighteen.  “Eheh…no, actually, I’m not scared of you.”  It was a lie, but the kid had been through enough for one day.  Maybe enough for a lifetime.

“I’m almost six,” he announced.  “I skip school a lot, though, because my teachers look at me funny and the kids all pick on me.”

“Oh,” Iruka said.  He couldn’t think of anything else to say to that.  “Here.”  He held the door open, and the little blond strode into Reika’s office like he owned the place.

“Naruto,” she greeted as he climbed onto the stool and sat there expectantly.  “How are things, lately?  You’re eating well?”

He shrugged.  “That grumpy guy brings okay food.  And the old man visits me sometimes.  He says I’m doing well, and he’s proud of me, but I can’t think what for.”

She laughed as she disinfected his scrapes.  “That ‘old man’ is our Hokage, Naruto!  You should be more respectful.”

“Why should I?” came the petulant response.

“Because only the strongest ninja in Konohagakure can become Hokage,” she told him patiently.  “Everyone looks up to the Hokage, because he protects us all.”

He seemed to consider that.  “Hm.  Well, then I’ll be Hokage!  Then everyone will have to respect me!”

She smiled.  “Lots of people say that, Naruto, but many of them give up.”

“I won’t give up!” he declared.  “Hokage is my new dream!  I’ll definitely be the best!”

~“Dakara Hokage wa ore no yume da!”~

Iruka frowned.  Come to think of it, hadn’t Rena-san had a baby just before she died?  He doubted this could be the boy, although he was certainly coarse enough to be her son.  Kakashi would know; he could ask later.

“Now, thank Umino-kun for bringing you in.”

The blond hopped down from the chair and looked up at Iruka.  “Thanks, oyaji.”

Twitching, Iruka offered a smile.  “Yeah.  No sweat, kid.  Run along home, now.”

Reika smiled until Naruto had left the room.  “You know why they treat him like that?” she asked.

Iruka looked at her.  “Sandaime-sama once told me that he has the Kyuubi’s spirit locked inside him.  I didn’t understand everything I was told, though…it sounded very complicated.  He said that with the demon sealed, all a person would have to do in order to kill the demon would be to kill the boy.”

“And you once wanted to,” she finished.

Ashamed, he nodded.  “I did.  I got over that.  It isn’t the boy’s fault, and it wouldn’t be right to sacrifice his life like that.  It wouldn’t be right to take away his chance at living…the way the demon did to so many.”

She turned that same sweet smile on him again.  “Yokatta.  Oneesama would cry to seem him treated so…but Yondaime-sama did the best that he could, and that’s all anyone can ask for.  It wasn’t meant to be like this, you know…Naruto was supposed to be our hero.”

Surprised, Iruka just stared and listened.

“That fox is a very powerful spirit indeed,” she went on.  “And he can be harnessed through a seal such as the one Yondaime-sama placed on him.  When Naruto has grown up a bit, and learned how to use that power properly, he will be our greatest protector.  But humans are very cruel, very blind, and very unforgiving.  They choose to blame him, so that they don’t need to blame themselves.  All we can do is hope that, no matter how many times he falls or gets lost, he’ll stand back up and start walking one more time.  Ne?”  Then she walked over to her desk, picked up a note, and handed it to him.  “Take this to the pharmacy downstairs; follow all the instructions and get a good night’s rest.  Ki o tsukete kudasai, Umino-kun.”

***

“Why did you hold me back?” Itachi demanded.  “They could have stoned that kid to death if Umino hadn’t run out there.”

Kakashi arched a brow.  “That bothers you?  Ah, that’s right…Itachi-kun no otouto-chan is about that age, isn’t he?  Perhaps they even go to school together.”

Itachi didn’t say anything, but Kakashi could feel that extra-special ‘not-so-thrilled’ glare that meant Itachi would have liked to do terrible things to him.

“You’re fond of your brother.”

“He’s my brother.”

Kakashi made a quick leap to the roof across from the public apartments.  “So he is,” Kakashi admitted.

“I don’t understand,” Itachi said flatly, landing beside his companion.  “Why were we there, if not to intervene?”

Kakashi watched as the little blond boy entered his apartment and flopped down on the couch.  “We were there to intervene on the behalf of the other children, if necessary,” he replied.

“Explain.”

“The nine-tailed fox who nearly destroyed our village is sealed inside that child.”

“I already know this.”

“Shut up and listen when your elders speak!” Kakashi snapped, in a rare show of temper.

Itachi shut his mouth.

“That seal isn’t completely impenetrable.  The fox’s power, and maybe even his will, can leak out at times.  If the boy had lost his temper…who knows what he might have done.  It’s part of why the adults in the village would prefer him to be dead.”  Shifting, Kakashi sighed.  “The reason he wasn’t killed…is that he can be taught to control the fox’s power.  And for one person to carry a force that great within them…he could be seen as the perfect weapon.  The jinchuuriki…the vessels of the nine bijuu…are weapons of war.  And once upon a time, the whole world fought for them.  If a jinchuuriki can be raised as a normal person, with hopes, ideals, concepts of right and wrong, a will of his own…then he can become a guardian of Konohagakure.  However…if our enemies were to find out we had such a young jinchuuriki in our possession, he would immediately become a target, and so would our crippled village.”

Itachi made a thoughtful sound.  “They would try to kidnap him in order to indoctrinate him or draw out the demon.”

“Right.”  Kakashi stretched and popped his back.  “Shit.  Well, I think he’ll stay in for the day.  I really don’t think it’s that big a deal for now—the seal is too fresh still, so the fox is sleepy and dormant.  Now you’ve seen where he lives; as per Sandaime-sama’s instructions, Naruto is your problem.”

Itachi glared at him again.

Ruffling his hair, Kakashi tried to look sympathetic.  “Look…try to remember that he has the potential to be extremely dangerous, and that you’re here to protect the citizens of this village.  Turn off your emotions; do your duty.  Please excuse me, I have a date.”  And he dashed away over the rooftops.

When he got to Ichiraku Ramen, it looked like Iruka had been waiting for a while.

“Yo!” he called cheerily.  “I hope I’m not too late…a baby fox had lost its way, so I made sure it got home all right.”

Distractedly, Iruka glanced up.  “Hm?  Oh.  No, I only got here a few minutes ago.  Do you know a boy named Naruto?”

Kakashi sat down, grateful for his mask.  “I know of a boy named Naruto.”

“The one that Yondaime-sama…you know…put the…”  Iruka lowered his voice, as though afraid he might call the demon to him.  “…Kyuubi…into.”

“Yes.”

“Whose child is he?”

“Boss, shrimp ramen, if you would,” Kakashi called over the counter, and the man who ran the stall saluted with his ladle to show he’d heard.  “Nobody’s now,” he told Iruka blandly.

“Reika-san seemed to know him, and he said that he had once lived with her.  What was Rena-san’s child’s name?”

Softly, Kakashi answered.  “Naruto.”

“You do know him!” Iruka accused.

“I’m not so great with kids,” Kakashi sighed.  “And besides, Sandaime-sama gave me a direct order to stay out of the kid’s life as long as possible.  And who else would take him in, eh?  Reika-chan has an important job, running that hospital.  There’s nothing left of the father’s family.  Rena-neesan’s closest friends are dead.  The only other person who could take him in already has a small child to deal with.”

Iruka frowned shrewdly.  “You mean Okosa.  Because Kisa-san was one of Rena-san’s friends.”

Kakashi nodded.

Iruka’s frown deepened.  He felt like he was forgetting something important, something that Kakashi was going out of his way to avoid mentioning.  Something about the boy’s father…  Shaking his head, he said, “Well…then I’ll just have to check in on him from time to time.”

***

So.

Children were a ‘duty’ now.

In a perverse way, it fascinated Itachi how large groups of people were quick to place blame and sacrifice any lamb they could in the hope of gaining some small measure of imagined safety.

This child had done nothing.  This unwanted little orphan had been the convenient scapegoat for an entire village.

If there had been a well-known surname, a famous family, a bloodline limit of some kind…everything would be different.  If the demon had been sealed into a kid from, say, the Hyuuga clan, he’d be pampered and guarded and no one would dare the kind of abuse and segregation they used against the orphan boy.

That was the trouble with Konohagakure.  With the world in general.

They set far too much store on name and ancestry…far too much store on that one insipid little word…‘genius.’

“You got that look on your face again,” Okosa said.

Itachi glanced over his shoulder.

“What’s on your mind, kid?”

Thoughtfully, Itachi began, “Your son is a genius.  You weren’t.”

Okosa shifted feet and scuffed at the floor with the toe of his shoe.  He was always careful with Itachi, the young assassin realized; many a scavenger was, around a predator.  “Yes.  That’s right.”

Itachi went back to staring out the window of the senior jounin lounge.  “I am a genius.  My father was not.  My brother is not.  But your wife was a genius, and my grandfather was as well.  It’s hit-or-miss heredity.”

He heard Okosa snicker a bit.  “So it is.”

“With fuzzy chances like those, with no real way to predict it, people still hinge all their hopes on that word.  A ‘genius’ is more likely to advance quickly, more likely to get a good job, more popular, more praiseworthy.  But lately, there aren’t so many, and the people are becoming increasingly disappointed with the children who are born.”

“Hold on, now…” Okosa protested.  “I love my son, and I would even if he didn’t know which end of a kunai to stab with.”

Itachi held up a finger.  “Exception to the rule.  These poor, ordinary children, are subjected to all the most unfair comparisons.  ‘If only you were a genius, like your brother.’”  His lip curled.

Okosa shuffled a little.  Itachi could feel that penetrating, considering gaze focused on him.  Okosa was thinking, and he was starting to draw lines between the dots Itachi was laying out.  “Your family produces more geniuses than some,” the older man began slowly.  “And it isn’t kind to the ones who aren’t geniuses.”

The name hung unspoken between them—Uchiha Obito.

Would Sasuke be another Obito?  Would he be disliked by his own parents, unremarkable until the very eve of his death and even then ridiculed by his family?  ‘Yes, he was right to sacrifice himself.  He deserved to sacrifice his life for that of a real genius like Kakashi.’  Would they say that about Sasuke someday?

“You’re very fond of your brother,” Okosa said softly.  And the tone of his silence said, ‘There’s an awful lot you’d do to keep Sasuke from ending up like your nobody cousin.’

Itachi folded his arms across his chest and drummed his fingers against his bicep.  “It’s become a form of racism…and that’s what the problem is.  The problem plaguing our world these days, Higawa-san, is that too many people place too much trust in geniuses, and too little in their own children.”

“Could be,” Okosa conceded.  Again, his silence spoke more: ‘And it could just be that your family has its ass on backwards and makes stony, disapproving fathers who see their own sons as commodities instead of children.’

“These…geniuses…these wonderful, gifted children…  Everyone calls them prodigies, insists they’ll be the best of the best.  What chance does an ordinary child with childishly big dreams stand against such a social stamp?  My little brother has a dream that our father will one day be proud of him, and even I am not cold-hearted enough to tell him that our father will never be satisfied with less than a ‘genius.’”  Itachi’s lip curled again.  “That has ever been the way of our world…sacrifice based on the probability that if a child is not immediately spectacular, he will forever be mediocre.”

Somewhere behind him, Okosa just stood there, sounding like he was scuffing his toe again.  Once more, a silence with words in it.  ‘And you won’t let them sacrifice him.  You’re going to do something.’

“Soon, however,” Itachi went on, “that will change.  I will prove to them that an ordinary boy can become a genius, given the proper resources and motivation.  I will turn Sasuke into a genius.  I will teach them not to trust so much in ‘born geniuses’, and this world will sob apologies to all those ordinary children and their sacrificed dreams.”

“That sounds a lot like a threat,” Okosa noted casually.  Tacked onto the end, ‘I’ve seen you turn a man inside-out.  You’re going to do something, and it’s not going to be pretty.  I don’t want to clean it up.  Please don’t make me clean it up.’  “What are you plotting this time, Uchiha?”

Itachi smirked over his shoulder.  “Everything, Higawa-san…everything.  And who knows?  With my theory proven true, perhaps someday even that ostracized little orphan boy will surpass this village’s born geniuses.”  With a quick seal, he teleported away.

Saika was reading that damned newspaper of his when Itachi arrived.

“Aburame.”

The man blinked and looked up.  “I’m on break, Uchiha-san.  I’m sure Matsuri-chan will help you.”

“I’m in the mood for an assassination,” Itachi said.

Sighing in the put-out way of all indespensible people on break, Saika dug around in his stack of folders and pulled one out.  “Well…this is all I have for now, I think.  The others are two- and three-man missions.  You know the drill; destroy it as soon as you read it, make your report directly to Hokage-sama when you return.”

Itachi smiled thinly and took the folder.  “Thank you.”

***

Higawa Sousuke was annoyed.

Not for the normal reasons of a four year-old—oh, no.  Not for toys he couldn’t have, friends who couldn’t come play, sweets he wanted but wasn’t allowed…

Higawa Sousuke was annoyed for the simple reason that he could find no one to fight.

It was easy enough to say that people took a killing machine seriously no matter its size, but the fact remained that only Anbu members really did.  If he asked anyone else to spar, he would get a chuckle and a pat on the head.  Since the Hokage had admonished him sternly for using his bloodline abilities against such people, his only recourse was to scowl and go somewhere else to look for training.

None of the jounin would take him on.  No team wanted him.  The older kids all thought he was a freak once they’d met him, and the adults gossipped to each other that he was spoiled and unstable.

So he was left, at the tender age of four and one half years, to do any missions (below A-Rank) he chose to do, as long as he could do them alone.

Beyond that, people ignored him, as they ignore most things that are off-putting or impossible.  (If you watch people long enough, you will notice this—after the stage of staring at something unbelievable, they actually manage to stop believing it.  If you see a pink elephant, you will cautiously ask others if they saw it, and someone in the group will take the idea into his head that pink elephants don’t exist, so you’ll all laugh derisively if he says he saw it.  He’ll say he didn’t see it, and everyone else will laugh nervously and say, ‘yes, of course…I didn’t see it either.’  Because, deep down, programmed by nature, humans have a wonderful, terrible urge to be just like every other human.  Under normal circumstances, it will take three to seven viewings of something ‘impossible’ before you manage to get a group of people who have that rarest of gems: the man who insists he saw the pink elephant no matter what you say, and no, he’s not crazy, thankyouverymuch, and what are you doing with that straightjacket?!)

Kakashi was too busy doing lovey-dovey things with Iruka (whom Sousuke found irrepressibly dull).  Itachi had gone on another mission.  The rest of the Anbu squads treated him like a troublesome pest unless they were in a mood to risk singeing their eyebrows for a good spar.

So Sousuke sat in the jounin lounge pouting.

“You should learn a strategy game, or take up a hobby,” Saika suggested from behind his newspaper.

Sousuke glared.  “I’m not an old man,” Sousuke said primly.  “I don’t want to do something dumb like Shougi or Go.  That would suck.”

“Itachi-kun plays Go,” Saika told him, turning a page.  “It’s a challenging game, involving foresight, strategy, and decision-making.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Intelligent people are never bored.”

This was a lie, and Sousuke knew it.

Intelligent people should never be bored, because they should be able to think of a million things they could be doing.  Unfortunately, they rapidly dismiss most of their options as being unsavory, unentertaining, or involving too much work.  The saying ought to go ‘intelligent, well-motivated people are never bored.’

“That’s a load of crap,” Sousuke announced.

Slowly, Saika looked over his paper.

“I’m bored right now,” he reasoned.  “You calling me stupid?  Hokage-sama only said I wasn’t allowed to attack people who patronize me; he didn’t say anything about people who insult me.”

Saika set his paper aside, pushed his sunglasses up his nose, and folded his hands on his lap (a routine most adults go through in preparation for dealing with a troublesome child).  “Well, Higawa-kun, I don’t have any B-Ranks for you today.  You could do some D-Rank drudgery, with a few of the genin teams, I suppose…  That sort of thing shows willing.  Looks good on your record.”

Sousuke gave Saika a look that he’d learned from his mother.  It was a look that said, ‘You didn’t really just try that line of bullshit on me, did you?  I’ll pretend you didn’t.’  “Willing to what?” Sousuke snorted.  “Willing to do crap that nobody else wants to do?”

“Yes,” Saika said flatly.

Sousuke could tell that Saika wasn’t used to dealing with younger people who happened to be capable of independent thought.  His frown had that tight, twitchy quality that Sousuke’s father’s frown got right before he would set down his tea and say something like, ‘You go to your room, I’ll go to mine.  If each of us pretends the other doesn’t exist for a while, we can avoid all-out war.’  Anko had once said that it was all because Sousuke was ‘a difficult kid to deal with.’

“And that’s good?”

“Yes,” Saika insisted.  “No matter how small the task, if it must be done, someone must do it.  We are tools of our village, Higawa-kun…it is presumptious to say that any task is too menial for us.  If it were too menial, someone wouldn’t be paying the village to get the task done.  I, for one, would not waste my time filing a proper mission briefing if I didn’t think a mission deserved to be given the undivided attention of a trained shinobi.”

That one made Sousuke pause abashedly.

~“A good ninja knows that there is no task too small.  What is easy for you may be impossible for someone else…every job we get is important.”~

He looked up at the space beside him.  He could imagine his mother there, looking at him with calculating eyes…not disappointed, not yet…but waiting to see if he would make the right decision.  Twenty-eight was a ripe old age for someone who risked her life every time she set foot outside the village, and she had been a trained killer from as young an age as he had.  Someone who lives and breathes duty for twenty-six years surely knows how the system works.  If a shinobi ceases to live by rules, he is nothing, and he will soon die.

Sousuke set his mouth in a firm line.  You couldn’t become Anbu by only doing the missions you wanted to do; his mother had told him that, and Kakashi and Itachi had told him that.  Kakashi had at least twenty D-Rank missions on his record.

~“We are servants, Sou-chan.  We exist to serve Konohagakure.  From the moment you tied that hitai-ate around your wrist, you were a servant of the village.  We don’t do this because it’s fun; we do it because someone has to.  If it has to get done, someone has to do it.  That ‘someone’ is us.”~

She would have been ashamed to hear him complaining about boredom when somebody, somewhere needed a ninja’s help to do something.  She might even slap him (which she had only ever done once, and which had only hurt because everyone in the street had turned to stare).

“Sumimasen,” he said quietly.  “I had no right to imply that any mission is beneath me.  If you’ll give me a D-Rank mission, I’ll accomplish it to the best of my abilities and return for another.”

Saika looked stunned.  Sousuke seemed to have that effect on people, when he decided to be all serious.  He just stared for a moment.  “Of course, Higawa-kun,” he managed to choke out, finally, and reached for a thick stack of mission folders.

***

It was a small house, really.  Itachi considered its layout, and the layout of the neighborhood.  It was entirely possible that he could kill half the little village before any of them were the wiser, but he was only being paid for one—just one—and it would be a tad unprofessional to do any more.  He wouldn’t want to tip his hand early.  That showed weakness, unpreparedness, disorganization…a certain amount of wasteful inelegance.

Getting in was criminally easy; she hadn’t even locked the front door.  Her husband was asleep, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.  The daughter was asleep.

There was a study, the last door on the right.

She was awake, he knew from the feel of her chakra.

Silently, he edged into the room.

There was a candle on the desk; he refrained from looking at it, to preserve his night-vision.  The woman was writing something, fully absorbed in the task.  A journal?  Itachi didn’t care.

It would be simple enough to cut her head from her body…but she was jounin, so there was always the chance that she would hear him draw the blade.

He crept right up behind her and brought his hands up, almost lovingly, to her neck.

She gasped quietly and stiffened, dropping her pen.  It rattled a little and rolled onto the floor.

In that instant of life and death, there was the tiniest creep of something icy and uncontrollable…something tiptoeing its way into Itachi’s brain.

Instead of snapping the woman’s neck, he tightened his hands around her throat.  Maybe it was her long, dark hair, but she was starting to blur in his mind, starting to become his mother.

“I won’t let you,” he told her, softly.  “I won’t let you ruin him.”  Then, with a gentle sort of detachment, he squeezed harder, listening to the tone of her gurgling as it rose and weakened.  She flailed ineffectually with her hands, making the chair scuff softly at the floorboards, murdering the candle’s frail flame with a careless draft.

In the shadows of the house, he dropped his dead target.  She made a dull thud when she hit the floor.

For just a moment, he realized that he’d been terribly inefficient, and sighed at his shoddy work.

She’d made him angry, in a boiling-cold way, and that annoyed him.  Itachi didn’t like losing control.

Then again, there had been a sense of deep triumph and satisfaction when the woman’s body had gone limp.  He wondered if it would be that nice to kill his real mother, and if he would be as inefficient when he shuffled off her mortal coil for her.  The thought was a little unpleasant, that he might waste precious time and energy when the moment came, but he resigned himself.  He would be efficient with the rest of the family.  He could afford to take things a bit slower with his parents…after all, they were a special case.

Smiling to himself, Itachi nodded and turned to leave.

He stopped, caught between slight surprise and mild embarrassment.

A little girl stood in the doorway, frozen in shock.  Her eyes were round as she stared up at him, but he didn’t think she was afraid.

“Your mother is dead,” he said.  “And unless you’re a good, quiet girl until I leave, I will kill you, too.  Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He smiled again, walking right past her and leaving through the front door.  He was several hundred feet away before the little girl screamed.

From a safe perch in a dark tree, he noted the way it took about ten seconds of prolonged, bloodcurdling, small-child-in-utter-distress screaming before lights even flickered on around the neighborhood.  Even then, there was a sort of confused milling about, a slow process of people muzzily leaning out of windows and doors to see what was the matter.

Sheep, Itachi thought, sneering.

Fuzzy-minded sheep, not even noticing the wolf in their fold until someone had been bitten, and not understanding it until a long while afterward.

He wondered if Sasuke would scream like that, and if it would take that long for anyone to rush to his side.

Longer, he decided, and grinned to himself.  There wouldn’t be anyone left in earshot.

First, he would need the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Well, it was for Sasuke…surely poor Shisui would understand.  And if he didn't, then Itachi would feel that much less guilty about killing his own best friend.

~owari Part 3~

=================================

Thanks to:
everyone – for being so patient with all the multiple edits.  TT_TT
shley-chan – for getting me addicted to naruto.

Description
The Killing Kind: Part 3

blah = japanese
~“blah”~ = flashback dialogue
blah = emphasis

=================================

Iruka opened his eyes and blinked at the ceiling as the previous night filtered back to him.

Somehow, Kakashi had gone from the spare bed to Iruka’s floor to Iruka’s bed, and Iruka hadn’t been able to keep his hands to himself.

He remembered the thrill of having one of the most dangerous shinobi of the village at his mercy, writhing beneath him and gazing up with adoring eyes…the sound of his name falling sweetly from parted lips…a whispered mantra of aishiteiru.

He blushed, but it was a proud blush.

There were birds singing outside.

The sun was venturing out in white-gold patches through the ragged remains of stormclouds.

The air smelled of water and leaves.

And nestled up against him and tangled around him was a bundle of warm flesh that went by the name of Hatake Kakashi.

Life was good, Iruka decided, stretching a bit.  Kakashi grumbled something and tightened his arm around Iruka’s ribs.  With a grin, Iruka put his arms around his new lover and kissed him awake.

“Mmf,” Kakashi muttered articulately, eyes barely open.  “Too early…”

“I have students to teach.”

“So leave me out of it,” came the complaint.  Rolling over, Kakashi yanked a pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

Iruka shook his head.  “Well, just make sure you drop by the mission office to see about getting yourself properly reassigned.  And get that overprotective Higawa off my back—tell him I haven’t broken your heart, so he can’t break my arms.”

Kakashi mumbled something from under all the fluff and feathers, and flapped an arm in Iruka’s general direction.

Grinning, Iruka came around to the other side of the bed and ducked under the pillow that was hiding Kakashi’s face.  “Don’t sleep too long, lazy-bones,” he warned, kissing the corner of his lover’s mouth and idly tracing the long, pale scar over his Sharingan.

“If I do, it’ll be because you wore me out last night,” Kakashi retorted, grinning.

Iruka chuckled.  “I have to get ready.”  Then, with one last quick kiss, he left Kakashi to his slumber.

***

The Hokage stared at his folded hands.  “I won’t say I’m disappointed, Kakashi-kun; I owe you better than that.  I’m sorry that this wasn’t the path for you after all, and I’m sorry that you don’t feel that you are suited to the role of Hokage.  May I ask what brought on such a decision?  As the man whose successor you would have been, I would like an honest response.  Whatever you may say will remain between us.”

Kakashi considered for a moment.  “Well…there is someone very dear to me who would like for me to take life a bit slower.   But really, I don’t have the patience to run a whole village.”

Sarutobi’s brows shot up.  “Really?  I disagree.  I think you have all the necessary qualities in you.  You have the only truly necessary quality—the desire to protect the people of this village.  I think that quality has allowed you to complete missions that others might shy from.  However, if you do not believe yourself ready, then I must trust your judgement.  Well…do you suppose you could help train new genin?  With Kesako retiring, we’ll need another genin instructor.”

Kids.  He didn’t like kids.  He never knew what they were thinking, or how to treat them.

He ‘hmm’ed for a moment and scratched his hitai-ate.

It was slower.  And it was an important job.  Good genin became good chuunin, and good chuunin became good jounin.  Building a strong village started at the bottom, and working with three at a time was infinitely better than working with thirty.  He would never know how Iruka could stand it.

“All right,” he conceded finally.

“Yokatta,” Sandaime-Hokage said, smiling.  “Please tell Saika-san right away.”

Kakashi nodded and left.  At this time of day, Saika would be enjoying his break in the jounin lounge.  A few seals, long ago memorized, and he was there.

Okosa spilled his tea again.  “Damn you, Hatake!” he shouted.  “You’re as bad as my son!”

Kakashi just grinned.

“I’m just here to pay Saika-san a visit.”

Across the room, Saika looked up from his newspaper.  A bug crawled across the top of it.  “Oh?”

“Yes.”  Kakashi wandered over.  “I’ve officially resigned as A-Squad Anbu captain.  I’ll be training genin from now on.”

Okosa spat his tea this time.  “You what?!”

Kakashi gave him an innocent look.  “Resigned from my post.  I decided the other day, and I spoke with Hokage-sama about it just a few minutes ago.”

There was a long, stunned pause.  Slowly, Okosa reached to wipe up the mess he’d made.  Finally, he looked back up with narrowed eyes.  “This is about Umino.”

Scratching his hitai-ate, Kakashi feigned further innocence.  “Is it?  I don’t know…being an assassin is awfully dangerous work, and I’m not getting any younger…  I will say that you are not allowed to break poor Iruka-kun’s arms.”

“All right then,” Okosa grunted.  “Keep your secrets, assassin.”  He sighed.  “I thought for sure it’d be your face up on that mountain, next to Yondaime-sama’s.  I’d got myself all prepared for the shock and everything.  Do you really want to train genin?  Sousuke was nightmare enough at that rank—I can’t imagine what older ones would be like.”

Kakashi shrugged.  “They’re children.  How hard could it be?”

Okosa burst out laughing.  “You have no idea!”

At that moment, Anko walked in with a sandwich in her mouth.  “Mmf mm humph um?”

“Higawa is being asinine again,” Saika told her, going back to his newspaper.

Anko took her sandwich out of her mouth and swallowed.  “What’s…ass….assuh….what you said?”

“He’s being a smart-aleck,” Saika clarified.  “Hatake thinks dealing with children is easy, and Higawa finds that funny.”

She made a face.  “Kids suck, Kakashi-niisan.  They’re messy and noisy and dumb.  And they think they know a lot, when they really don’t.”

Okosa just laughed harder.

“Aren’t you still a kid, Anko-chan?” Kakashi teased.

“Blech!” she said, shaking her head.  “I’m nearly fourteen!  I’m not a kid.  I’ve had my hitai-ate for years and years now.”

“Oh, I see.”  He nodded placatingly.  She didn’t seem to notice that he was still teasing.  He shouldn’t, he knew—she’d been a jounin for almost a year now, and chuunin for a long time before that.  She’d been one of Orochimaru’s students, just as he had.

Having finally gotten his laughter under control, Okosa snorted and poured himself some more tea.  “Well, Sousuke is my son, and I don’t care how long he’s had that hitai-ate, a four year-old is still a kid.”

She waved a hand.  “Well, yeah!  Of course a four year-old is still a kid, but not a teenager like me, y’know?”

Kakashi scratched his hitai-ate again.  “I don’t know…  By the time I was six, I’d already killed a man, and that’s not such a big age gap.  I don’t really think I was a kid.  I had some stupid ideas, maybe, but even old men have stupid ideas about things.”

Okosa scowled.  “It was bad enough letting the little monster take the chuunin exam last year…”

“Well, you didn’t think he’d pass,” Anko said loftily, picking at her nails.  “It’s your own fault.  How long d’you think it’ll take him to find out there’s an open spot on the Anbu squads?”

“Don’t even say things like that!” Okosa scolded.  “You’re likely to—”

He was interrupted by a puff of smoke and a blond blur.

“Dad, Dad, Dad, guess what!”

Okosa glared at Anko.  Then he forced a smile and said, “What?”

Sousuke bounced excitedly.  “There’s an opening on the Anbu squads!”

Okosa glared at Anko some more, and she sheepishly scratched the back of her head.

“Itachi-san said so, so it must be true!  Can I take the exam, Dad?  Can I, can I?”

“No.  Absolutely not.”

“Aww, why not?!”

“You’re too young.”

Sousuke scowled, looking very much like his father except for the messy blond braids trailing in his eyes and over his shoulders.  “That’s dumb!  I’m a chuunin, and I’ve been a shinobi of the village since last year!  I can do it, Dad, I know I can!”

“No,” Kakashi said.  Another stunned silence ensued as all four of his companions turned to look at him.  He crouched in front of Sousuke and put a hand on his head.  “No, you don’t know.  It isn’t as glamorous as it sounds…being that high-rank just means that people expect a lot more out of you.  Too much for you, just yet, I think.  Your father thinks so too, and you should listen to him.  I know that Hokage-sama would agree with us both…you aren’t ready for Anbu.  I didn’t let go of that burden so that someone as young and promising as you would have to pick it up.”

Sousuke blinked his big green eyes.  “Kakashi-niisan?”

Kakashi grinned and ruffled Sousuke’s hair a little.  “Wait a few more years, grow up a bit more, become a jounin, and then we’ll see.  I’d bet good money that you’ll be one of the best Anbu the village has ever seen.”

“Really?  As good as Itachi-san?  As good as you?”

“Kitto.”

A slow smile crept onto the little boy’s face.  “Well…I guess I can wait a little, then.  Meanwhile, I’ll take all the B-rank missions I can.  That’ll show them how responsible I am.”

Kakashi nodded.  “Right.  For now, you should probably go train some more, so that you’ll always be in top condition.  Practice with your bloodline limit, eh?”

Sousuke nodded and teleported away.

“Thanks,” Okosa said, grudgingly.  “Since Kisa died, I can’t get him to listen to me.  She could always make him see reason.”  He shook his head.

Embarrassed, Kakashi rubbed the back of his head.  “Ah…well…you were treating him like a little kid, and he’s not.  He’s killed, same as you.  He’s done as many B-rank missions as any other chuunin.  He’s his mother’s son.  He deserved to hear the real reasons, you know?  You should have told him why you didn’t want him to do it…he’d understand.”

Staring into his teacup, Okosa nodded.  “You’re right.  I’ll talk to him later.”  He ran a hand through his hair and sighed.  “How is it that everyone knows how to raise my boy but me?”

“Don’t worry, Okosa-sama,” Anko soothed, patting his arm.  “I think you’re a good father.”

“I take advice from a pair of crazy genius teenagers,” Okosa protested.

Kakashi grimaced.  “Well…I won’t be a teenager after next week…and we give you good advice, don’t we?”

Anko nodded vigorously.  “We give you great advice!  That’s what friends are for.”

Okosa pinched the bridge of his nose.  “You really think he’ll be as good as Itachi?”

Kakashi nodded soberly.  “With elemental control over lightning, surgical control over his chakra, and the determination to use them both?  He’ll be quite a rival for Itachi, if he keeps up with his training.  Just look at him…when I was his age, I was still at the academy, and he’s already a chuunin.  Even Itachi can’t make that boast.”

“I don’t want him to end up like you,” Okosa said sharply.

Anko squawked and started to argue, but Kakashi just chuckled.

“I don’t want him to end up like me, either,” he admitted.  “Or like anyone of our generation.  We’ve had too hard a life.  Yondaime-sensei sacrificed himself with the hope that things would get better for the children of Konohagakure…not worse.”

Okosa rested his elbows on his knees.  “You’re probably right.  It may be bad luck to even mention it…but I think he’s just about figured out all of Kisa’s bloodline jutsu.  It’s scary to think that a boy that young will be able to summon a storm dragon…let alone the Great Thunder Dragon.”

Kakashi shrugged.  “About as scary as his crazy mother being able to do it.”

Glaring, Okosa pointed accusingly.  “You wouldn’t understand, you were practically raised by her and Rena-chan!  Two crazy genius girls bringing up a crazy genius boy!  It’s ridiculous!  Impossible!  Psychotic!”

Anko looked at Kakashi.  “I dunno, he seems okay to me…”

“A normal person like me stands no chance against a force such as that,” Okosa lamented, flopping over on the couch he was sitting on.

***

Two days later, Iruka was sitting on a stool in Ogata Reika’s office at the hospital, staring uneasily at the little placard on her desk that said ‘Head of Hospital’ in big, block-print kanji.

“I really wish you wouldn’t fret, Reika-san,” Iruka protested, just before having a thermometer shoved into his mouth.

“No arguing!” the head medi-nin admonished.  “A cold can become something far worse if you’re not careful.  You shouldn’t work yourself so hard, Umino-kun.”

“Hai-hai,” he relented with a grin.

“Do you think Kakashi would forgive me if I let his very best friend catch pneumonia or something?”  She took the thermometer out and frowned at it.  “I’d be a disappointment to Oneesama at the very least.”

He glanced absently out the window as she scribbled something down.

A bunch of kids were playing outside in the street.  They couldn’t be older than about seven.  They ran and giggled and screamed in glee, and Iruka smiled at their carefree attitudes.  A little blond boy ran up to them, and they drew back.

Iruka frowned.  He knew that spiky mane…

The demon vessel.  The kid who housed the monster that had ravaged Konohagakure.

One of the kids threw something, and suddenly they were all throwing things.  It was a riot in miniature.

It was scary how easily group mentality manifested in children.

“Not again…” Reika sighed, taking the thermometer from his mouth.

Iruka looked up at her.  “Shouldn’t you do something?”

She contemplated him for a moment.  “Why?  Do you think you should do something?”

He thought about the question.  Yes.  That was why he’d asked her.

“Go on,” she said. “Bring him back in, and I’ll fix him up.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than he had dashed out the door and out of the hospital.

“Hey!” he yelled.  “Cut that out!”

The kids looked up guiltily.  All they saw as a guy with a hitai-ate and a jounin vest.  They scattered like bugs.

The little blond kid was covered in dirt and bruises.

Once upon a time, Iruka would have been right beside the other kids, throwing dirt and rocks and worse things.  It wasn’t fair.  The kid wasn’t the demon—he’d been a baby when the fox attacked.  Worse still, they weren’t allowed to tell the boy about the demon, so he didn’t even know why those other kids had turned on him.

Sniffling a little, he stood up and brushed himself off.

“Are you okay?” Iruka felt the need to ask.

“I’ve had worse,” the kid grunted, straightening his shirt.  “I dunno why I keep trying…it’s always the same.  Even when I lived with Reika-san, it was the same.”

Iruka blinked.  The kid had lived with Reika?  Was he the reason Sandaime-Hokage had decided she wouldn’t care for any other children, even on a temporary basis?

“Um…hey, you should come inside and have those scrapes looked at,” Iruka said, gesturing vaguely to the building behind him.  “You wouldn’t want them to get infected, right?”

The kid shrugged.

“Uh, I’m Umino Iruka, by the way.  I teach at the Academy.”

“Naruto,” the kid muttered, walking toward the building.

“So, Naruto, have you started primary school yet?  How old are you?”

The grubby blond looked puzzled.  “Aren’t you scared of me?  Lotsa people wouldn’t even talk to me, you know.  Especially old people like you.”

Iruka winced at having the phrase ‘old people’ linked to him.  He was barely eighteen.  “Eheh…no, actually, I’m not scared of you.”  It was a lie, but the kid had been through enough for one day.  Maybe enough for a lifetime.

“I’m almost six,” he announced.  “I skip school a lot, though, because my teachers look at me funny and the kids all pick on me.”

“Oh,” Iruka said.  He couldn’t think of anything else to say to that.  “Here.”  He held the door open, and the little blond strode into Reika’s office like he owned the place.

“Naruto,” she greeted as he climbed onto the stool and sat there expectantly.  “How are things, lately?  You’re eating well?”

He shrugged.  “That grumpy guy brings okay food.  And the old man visits me sometimes.  He says I’m doing well, and he’s proud of me, but I can’t think what for.”

She laughed as she disinfected his scrapes.  “That ‘old man’ is our Hokage, Naruto!  You should be more respectful.”

“Why should I?” came the petulant response.

“Because only the strongest ninja in Konohagakure can become Hokage,” she told him patiently.  “Everyone looks up to the Hokage, because he protects us all.”

He seemed to consider that.  “Hm.  Well, then I’ll be Hokage!  Then everyone will have to respect me!”

She smiled.  “Lots of people say that, Naruto, but many of them give up.”

“I won’t give up!” he declared.  “Hokage is my new dream!  I’ll definitely be the best!”

~“Dakara Hokage wa ore no yume da!”~

Iruka frowned.  Come to think of it, hadn’t Rena-san had a baby just before she died?  He doubted this could be the boy, although he was certainly coarse enough to be her son.  Kakashi would know; he could ask later.

“Now, thank Umino-kun for bringing you in.”

The blond hopped down from the chair and looked up at Iruka.  “Thanks, oyaji.”

Twitching, Iruka offered a smile.  “Yeah.  No sweat, kid.  Run along home, now.”

Reika smiled until Naruto had left the room.  “You know why they treat him like that?” she asked.

Iruka looked at her.  “Sandaime-sama once told me that he has the Kyuubi’s spirit locked inside him.  I didn’t understand everything I was told, though…it sounded very complicated.  He said that with the demon sealed, all a person would have to do in order to kill the demon would be to kill the boy.”

“And you once wanted to,” she finished.

Ashamed, he nodded.  “I did.  I got over that.  It isn’t the boy’s fault, and it wouldn’t be right to sacrifice his life like that.  It wouldn’t be right to take away his chance at living…the way the demon did to so many.”

She turned that same sweet smile on him again.  “Yokatta.  Oneesama would cry to seem him treated so…but Yondaime-sama did the best that he could, and that’s all anyone can ask for.  It wasn’t meant to be like this, you know…Naruto was supposed to be our hero.”

Surprised, Iruka just stared and listened.

“That fox is a very powerful spirit indeed,” she went on.  “And he can be harnessed through a seal such as the one Yondaime-sama placed on him.  When Naruto has grown up a bit, and learned how to use that power properly, he will be our greatest protector.  But humans are very cruel, very blind, and very unforgiving.  They choose to blame him, so that they don’t need to blame themselves.  All we can do is hope that, no matter how many times he falls or gets lost, he’ll stand back up and start walking one more time.  Ne?”  Then she walked over to her desk, picked up a note, and handed it to him.  “Take this to the pharmacy downstairs; follow all the instructions and get a good night’s rest.  Ki o tsukete kudasai, Umino-kun.”

***

“Why did you hold me back?” Itachi demanded.  “They could have stoned that kid to death if Umino hadn’t run out there.”

Kakashi arched a brow.  “That bothers you?  Ah, that’s right…Itachi-kun no otouto-chan is about that age, isn’t he?  Perhaps they even go to school together.”

Itachi didn’t say anything, but Kakashi could feel that extra-special ‘not-so-thrilled’ glare that meant Itachi would have liked to do terrible things to him.

“You’re fond of your brother.”

“He’s my brother.”

Kakashi made a quick leap to the roof across from the public apartments.  “So he is,” Kakashi admitted.

“I don’t understand,” Itachi said flatly, landing beside his companion.  “Why were we there, if not to intervene?”

Kakashi watched as the little blond boy entered his apartment and flopped down on the couch.  “We were there to intervene on the behalf of the other children, if necessary,” he replied.

“Explain.”

“The nine-tailed fox who nearly destroyed our village is sealed inside that child.”

“I already know this.”

“Shut up and listen when your elders speak!” Kakashi snapped, in a rare show of temper.

Itachi shut his mouth.

“That seal isn’t completely impenetrable.  The fox’s power, and maybe even his will, can leak out at times.  If the boy had lost his temper…who knows what he might have done.  It’s part of why the adults in the village would prefer him to be dead.”  Shifting, Kakashi sighed.  “The reason he wasn’t killed…is that he can be taught to control the fox’s power.  And for one person to carry a force that great within them…he could be seen as the perfect weapon.  The jinchuuriki…the vessels of the nine bijuu…are weapons of war.  And once upon a time, the whole world fought for them.  If a jinchuuriki can be raised as a normal person, with hopes, ideals, concepts of right and wrong, a will of his own…then he can become a guardian of Konohagakure.  However…if our enemies were to find out we had such a young jinchuuriki in our possession, he would immediately become a target, and so would our crippled village.”

Itachi made a thoughtful sound.  “They would try to kidnap him in order to indoctrinate him or draw out the demon.”

“Right.”  Kakashi stretched and popped his back.  “Shit.  Well, I think he’ll stay in for the day.  I really don’t think it’s that big a deal for now—the seal is too fresh still, so the fox is sleepy and dormant.  Now you’ve seen where he lives; as per Sandaime-sama’s instructions, Naruto is your problem.”

Itachi glared at him again.

Ruffling his hair, Kakashi tried to look sympathetic.  “Look…try to remember that he has the potential to be extremely dangerous, and that you’re here to protect the citizens of this village.  Turn off your emotions; do your duty.  Please excuse me, I have a date.”  And he dashed away over the rooftops.

When he got to Ichiraku Ramen, it looked like Iruka had been waiting for a while.

“Yo!” he called cheerily.  “I hope I’m not too late…a baby fox had lost its way, so I made sure it got home all right.”

Distractedly, Iruka glanced up.  “Hm?  Oh.  No, I only got here a few minutes ago.  Do you know a boy named Naruto?”

Kakashi sat down, grateful for his mask.  “I know of a boy named Naruto.”

“The one that Yondaime-sama…you know…put the…”  Iruka lowered his voice, as though afraid he might call the demon to him.  “…Kyuubi…into.”

“Yes.”

“Whose child is he?”

“Boss, shrimp ramen, if you would,” Kakashi called over the counter, and the man who ran the stall saluted with his ladle to show he’d heard.  “Nobody’s now,” he told Iruka blandly.

“Reika-san seemed to know him, and he said that he had once lived with her.  What was Rena-san’s child’s name?”

Softly, Kakashi answered.  “Naruto.”

“You do know him!” Iruka accused.

“I’m not so great with kids,” Kakashi sighed.  “And besides, Sandaime-sama gave me a direct order to stay out of the kid’s life as long as possible.  And who else would take him in, eh?  Reika-chan has an important job, running that hospital.  There’s nothing left of the father’s family.  Rena-neesan’s closest friends are dead.  The only other person who could take him in already has a small child to deal with.”

Iruka frowned shrewdly.  “You mean Okosa.  Because Kisa-san was one of Rena-san’s friends.”

Kakashi nodded.

Iruka’s frown deepened.  He felt like he was forgetting something important, something that Kakashi was going out of his way to avoid mentioning.  Something about the boy’s father…  Shaking his head, he said, “Well…then I’ll just have to check in on him from time to time.”

***

So.

Children were a ‘duty’ now.

In a perverse way, it fascinated Itachi how large groups of people were quick to place blame and sacrifice any lamb they could in the hope of gaining some small measure of imagined safety.

This child had done nothing.  This unwanted little orphan had been the convenient scapegoat for an entire village.

If there had been a well-known surname, a famous family, a bloodline limit of some kind…everything would be different.  If the demon had been sealed into a kid from, say, the Hyuuga clan, he’d be pampered and guarded and no one would dare the kind of abuse and segregation they used against the orphan boy.

That was the trouble with Konohagakure.  With the world in general.

They set far too much store on name and ancestry…far too much store on that one insipid little word…‘genius.’

“You got that look on your face again,” Okosa said.

Itachi glanced over his shoulder.

“What’s on your mind, kid?”

Thoughtfully, Itachi began, “Your son is a genius.  You weren’t.”

Okosa shifted feet and scuffed at the floor with the toe of his shoe.  He was always careful with Itachi, the young assassin realized; many a scavenger was, around a predator.  “Yes.  That’s right.”

Itachi went back to staring out the window of the senior jounin lounge.  “I am a genius.  My father was not.  My brother is not.  But your wife was a genius, and my grandfather was as well.  It’s hit-or-miss heredity.”

He heard Okosa snicker a bit.  “So it is.”

“With fuzzy chances like those, with no real way to predict it, people still hinge all their hopes on that word.  A ‘genius’ is more likely to advance quickly, more likely to get a good job, more popular, more praiseworthy.  But lately, there aren’t so many, and the people are becoming increasingly disappointed with the children who are born.”

“Hold on, now…” Okosa protested.  “I love my son, and I would even if he didn’t know which end of a kunai to stab with.”

Itachi held up a finger.  “Exception to the rule.  These poor, ordinary children, are subjected to all the most unfair comparisons.  ‘If only you were a genius, like your brother.’”  His lip curled.

Okosa shuffled a little.  Itachi could feel that penetrating, considering gaze focused on him.  Okosa was thinking, and he was starting to draw lines between the dots Itachi was laying out.  “Your family produces more geniuses than some,” the older man began slowly.  “And it isn’t kind to the ones who aren’t geniuses.”

The name hung unspoken between them—Uchiha Obito.

Would Sasuke be another Obito?  Would he be disliked by his own parents, unremarkable until the very eve of his death and even then ridiculed by his family?  ‘Yes, he was right to sacrifice himself.  He deserved to sacrifice his life for that of a real genius like Kakashi.’  Would they say that about Sasuke someday?

“You’re very fond of your brother,” Okosa said softly.  And the tone of his silence said, ‘There’s an awful lot you’d do to keep Sasuke from ending up like your nobody cousin.’

Itachi folded his arms across his chest and drummed his fingers against his bicep.  “It’s become a form of racism…and that’s what the problem is.  The problem plaguing our world these days, Higawa-san, is that too many people place too much trust in geniuses, and too little in their own children.”

“Could be,” Okosa conceded.  Again, his silence spoke more: ‘And it could just be that your family has its ass on backwards and makes stony, disapproving fathers who see their own sons as commodities instead of children.’

“These…geniuses…these wonderful, gifted children…  Everyone calls them prodigies, insists they’ll be the best of the best.  What chance does an ordinary child with childishly big dreams stand against such a social stamp?  My little brother has a dream that our father will one day be proud of him, and even I am not cold-hearted enough to tell him that our father will never be satisfied with less than a ‘genius.’”  Itachi’s lip curled again.  “That has ever been the way of our world…sacrifice based on the probability that if a child is not immediately spectacular, he will forever be mediocre.”

Somewhere behind him, Okosa just stood there, sounding like he was scuffing his toe again.  Once more, a silence with words in it.  ‘And you won’t let them sacrifice him.  You’re going to do something.’

“Soon, however,” Itachi went on, “that will change.  I will prove to them that an ordinary boy can become a genius, given the proper resources and motivation.  I will turn Sasuke into a genius.  I will teach them not to trust so much in ‘born geniuses’, and this world will sob apologies to all those ordinary children and their sacrificed dreams.”

“That sounds a lot like a threat,” Okosa noted casually.  Tacked onto the end, ‘I’ve seen you turn a man inside-out.  You’re going to do something, and it’s not going to be pretty.  I don’t want to clean it up.  Please don’t make me clean it up.’  “What are you plotting this time, Uchiha?”

Itachi smirked over his shoulder.  “Everything, Higawa-san…everything.  And who knows?  With my theory proven true, perhaps someday even that ostracized little orphan boy will surpass this village’s born geniuses.”  With a quick seal, he teleported away.

Saika was reading that damned newspaper of his when Itachi arrived.

“Aburame.”

The man blinked and looked up.  “I’m on break, Uchiha-san.  I’m sure Matsuri-chan will help you.”

“I’m in the mood for an assassination,” Itachi said.

Sighing in the put-out way of all indespensible people on break, Saika dug around in his stack of folders and pulled one out.  “Well…this is all I have for now, I think.  The others are two- and three-man missions.  You know the drill; destroy it as soon as you read it, make your report directly to Hokage-sama when you return.”

Itachi smiled thinly and took the folder.  “Thank you.”

***

Higawa Sousuke was annoyed.

Not for the normal reasons of a four year-old—oh, no.  Not for toys he couldn’t have, friends who couldn’t come play, sweets he wanted but wasn’t allowed…

Higawa Sousuke was annoyed for the simple reason that he could find no one to fight.

It was easy enough to say that people took a killing machine seriously no matter its size, but the fact remained that only Anbu members really did.  If he asked anyone else to spar, he would get a chuckle and a pat on the head.  Since the Hokage had admonished him sternly for using his bloodline abilities against such people, his only recourse was to scowl and go somewhere else to look for training.

None of the jounin would take him on.  No team wanted him.  The older kids all thought he was a freak once they’d met him, and the adults gossipped to each other that he was spoiled and unstable.

So he was left, at the tender age of four and one half years, to do any missions (below A-Rank) he chose to do, as long as he could do them alone.

Beyond that, people ignored him, as they ignore most things that are off-putting or impossible.  (If you watch people long enough, you will notice this—after the stage of staring at something unbelievable, they actually manage to stop believing it.  If you see a pink elephant, you will cautiously ask others if they saw it, and someone in the group will take the idea into his head that pink elephants don’t exist, so you’ll all laugh derisively if he says he saw it.  He’ll say he didn’t see it, and everyone else will laugh nervously and say, ‘yes, of course…I didn’t see it either.’  Because, deep down, programmed by nature, humans have a wonderful, terrible urge to be just like every other human.  Under normal circumstances, it will take three to seven viewings of something ‘impossible’ before you manage to get a group of people who have that rarest of gems: the man who insists he saw the pink elephant no matter what you say, and no, he’s not crazy, thankyouverymuch, and what are you doing with that straightjacket?!)

Kakashi was too busy doing lovey-dovey things with Iruka (whom Sousuke found irrepressibly dull).  Itachi had gone on another mission.  The rest of the Anbu squads treated him like a troublesome pest unless they were in a mood to risk singeing their eyebrows for a good spar.

So Sousuke sat in the jounin lounge pouting.

“You should learn a strategy game, or take up a hobby,” Saika suggested from behind his newspaper.

Sousuke glared.  “I’m not an old man,” Sousuke said primly.  “I don’t want to do something dumb like Shougi or Go.  That would suck.”

“Itachi-kun plays Go,” Saika told him, turning a page.  “It’s a challenging game, involving foresight, strategy, and decision-making.”

“Sounds boring.”

“Intelligent people are never bored.”

This was a lie, and Sousuke knew it.

Intelligent people should never be bored, because they should be able to think of a million things they could be doing.  Unfortunately, they rapidly dismiss most of their options as being unsavory, unentertaining, or involving too much work.  The saying ought to go ‘intelligent, well-motivated people are never bored.’

“That’s a load of crap,” Sousuke announced.

Slowly, Saika looked over his paper.

“I’m bored right now,” he reasoned.  “You calling me stupid?  Hokage-sama only said I wasn’t allowed to attack people who patronize me; he didn’t say anything about people who insult me.”

Saika set his paper aside, pushed his sunglasses up his nose, and folded his hands on his lap (a routine most adults go through in preparation for dealing with a troublesome child).  “Well, Higawa-kun, I don’t have any B-Ranks for you today.  You could do some D-Rank drudgery, with a few of the genin teams, I suppose…  That sort of thing shows willing.  Looks good on your record.”

Sousuke gave Saika a look that he’d learned from his mother.  It was a look that said, ‘You didn’t really just try that line of bullshit on me, did you?  I’ll pretend you didn’t.’  “Willing to what?” Sousuke snorted.  “Willing to do crap that nobody else wants to do?”

“Yes,” Saika said flatly.

Sousuke could tell that Saika wasn’t used to dealing with younger people who happened to be capable of independent thought.  His frown had that tight, twitchy quality that Sousuke’s father’s frown got right before he would set down his tea and say something like, ‘You go to your room, I’ll go to mine.  If each of us pretends the other doesn’t exist for a while, we can avoid all-out war.’  Anko had once said that it was all because Sousuke was ‘a difficult kid to deal with.’

“And that’s good?”

“Yes,” Saika insisted.  “No matter how small the task, if it must be done, someone must do it.  We are tools of our village, Higawa-kun…it is presumptious to say that any task is too menial for us.  If it were too menial, someone wouldn’t be paying the village to get the task done.  I, for one, would not waste my time filing a proper mission briefing if I didn’t think a mission deserved to be given the undivided attention of a trained shinobi.”

That one made Sousuke pause abashedly.

~“A good ninja knows that there is no task too small.  What is easy for you may be impossible for someone else…every job we get is important.”~

He looked up at the space beside him.  He could imagine his mother there, looking at him with calculating eyes…not disappointed, not yet…but waiting to see if he would make the right decision.  Twenty-eight was a ripe old age for someone who risked her life every time she set foot outside the village, and she had been a trained killer from as young an age as he had.  Someone who lives and breathes duty for twenty-six years surely knows how the system works.  If a shinobi ceases to live by rules, he is nothing, and he will soon die.

Sousuke set his mouth in a firm line.  You couldn’t become Anbu by only doing the missions you wanted to do; his mother had told him that, and Kakashi and Itachi had told him that.  Kakashi had at least twenty D-Rank missions on his record.

~“We are servants, Sou-chan.  We exist to serve Konohagakure.  From the moment you tied that hitai-ate around your wrist, you were a servant of the village.  We don’t do this because it’s fun; we do it because someone has to.  If it has to get done, someone has to do it.  That ‘someone’ is us.”~

She would have been ashamed to hear him complaining about boredom when somebody, somewhere needed a ninja’s help to do something.  She might even slap him (which she had only ever done once, and which had only hurt because everyone in the street had turned to stare).

“Sumimasen,” he said quietly.  “I had no right to imply that any mission is beneath me.  If you’ll give me a D-Rank mission, I’ll accomplish it to the best of my abilities and return for another.”

Saika looked stunned.  Sousuke seemed to have that effect on people, when he decided to be all serious.  He just stared for a moment.  “Of course, Higawa-kun,” he managed to choke out, finally, and reached for a thick stack of mission folders.

***

It was a small house, really.  Itachi considered its layout, and the layout of the neighborhood.  It was entirely possible that he could kill half the little village before any of them were the wiser, but he was only being paid for one—just one—and it would be a tad unprofessional to do any more.  He wouldn’t want to tip his hand early.  That showed weakness, unpreparedness, disorganization…a certain amount of wasteful inelegance.

Getting in was criminally easy; she hadn’t even locked the front door.  Her husband was asleep, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.  The daughter was asleep.

There was a study, the last door on the right.

She was awake, he knew from the feel of her chakra.

Silently, he edged into the room.

There was a candle on the desk; he refrained from looking at it, to preserve his night-vision.  The woman was writing something, fully absorbed in the task.  A journal?  Itachi didn’t care.

It would be simple enough to cut her head from her body…but she was jounin, so there was always the chance that she would hear him draw the blade.

He crept right up behind her and brought his hands up, almost lovingly, to her neck.

She gasped quietly and stiffened, dropping her pen.  It rattled a little and rolled onto the floor.

In that instant of life and death, there was the tiniest creep of something icy and uncontrollable…something tiptoeing its way into Itachi’s brain.

Instead of snapping the woman’s neck, he tightened his hands around her throat.  Maybe it was her long, dark hair, but she was starting to blur in his mind, starting to become his mother.

“I won’t let you,” he told her, softly.  “I won’t let you ruin him.”  Then, with a gentle sort of detachment, he squeezed harder, listening to the tone of her gurgling as it rose and weakened.  She flailed ineffectually with her hands, making the chair scuff softly at the floorboards, murdering the candle’s frail flame with a careless draft.

In the shadows of the house, he dropped his dead target.  She made a dull thud when she hit the floor.

For just a moment, he realized that he’d been terribly inefficient, and sighed at his shoddy work.

She’d made him angry, in a boiling-cold way, and that annoyed him.  Itachi didn’t like losing control.

Then again, there had been a sense of deep triumph and satisfaction when the woman’s body had gone limp.  He wondered if it would be that nice to kill his real mother, and if he would be as inefficient when he shuffled off her mortal coil for her.  The thought was a little unpleasant, that he might waste precious time and energy when the moment came, but he resigned himself.  He would be efficient with the rest of the family.  He could afford to take things a bit slower with his parents…after all, they were a special case.

Smiling to himself, Itachi nodded and turned to leave.

He stopped, caught between slight surprise and mild embarrassment.

A little girl stood in the doorway, frozen in shock.  Her eyes were round as she stared up at him, but he didn’t think she was afraid.

“Your mother is dead,” he said.  “And unless you’re a good, quiet girl until I leave, I will kill you, too.  Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He smiled again, walking right past her and leaving through the front door.  He was several hundred feet away before the little girl screamed.

From a safe perch in a dark tree, he noted the way it took about ten seconds of prolonged, bloodcurdling, small-child-in-utter-distress screaming before lights even flickered on around the neighborhood.  Even then, there was a sort of confused milling about, a slow process of people muzzily leaning out of windows and doors to see what was the matter.

Sheep, Itachi thought, sneering.

Fuzzy-minded sheep, not even noticing the wolf in their fold until someone had been bitten, and not understanding it until a long while afterward.

He wondered if Sasuke would scream like that, and if it would take that long for anyone to rush to his side.

Longer, he decided, and grinned to himself.  There wouldn’t be anyone left in earshot.

First, he would need the Mangekyou Sharingan.

Well, it was for Sasuke…surely poor Shisui would understand.  And if he didn't, then Itachi would feel that much less guilty about killing his own best friend.

~owari Part 3~

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Thanks to:
everyone – for being so patient with all the multiple edits.  TT_TT
shley-chan – for getting me addicted to naruto.