wraithvault

C3

"Okay, now who can read this word?"

Out of the many kids sitting gathered in the classroom, only four of them put their hands up in the air. Iruka let his gaze slide over all of them before he picked one and called out, "Mio-chan?"

The girl, with sand-colored hair and dark eyes of indeterminable color, sat up straighter in her chair and answered, "Blue!"

Iruka smiled at her and nodded at her with pride, "Good work, Mio-chan! I can tell you've been doing your homework."

After a full week of teaching, Iruka liked to think that he had gotten used to it. He still didn't know what he was actually supposed to be teaching, because his fellow teachers were always running around after kids in a panic, unable to spare him even a second of their time, but he had gotten a good routine going where he taught the basics. He was even thinking of starting them on maths once they had a decent grasp of reading if he had enough time for it.

It helped that, despite his initial doubts, his students were all kind, good kids that wanted to learn. They soaked up everything he taught them frighteningly fast.

Writing another word on the backboard, Iruka turned back to his class and asked, "And this word?"

This time, almost ten students put their hands up in the air. Iruka pointed at one and asked, "Kazuki-kun?"

"Green." the boy beamed at Iruka when he praised him for his good work, and Iruka felt a burst of pride swell in his chest. They were all dedicated students and hard workers. Yet, that just made it all worse, how much of a failure he was.

"Alright." Iruka said and grabbed a pile of paper he had had stacked on his desk since classes began for the day. He walked between the desks and gave everyone a copy. "This is your homework for next week. I want all you to practice writing the colors in your notebooks. If your notebook is full, just tell me and I'll get you a new one."

The kids nodded at him and were beaming at each other.

Smiling softly at the happy picture the children made, Iruka glanced up at the clock when he heard the final bell ring and announced, "That's it for today! Classes begins again on Monday at eight o'clock! Don't be late."

With that, his first week of teaching was officially over.

Breathing out in relief, Iruka sat down on his chair and just rested. At least nobody had died or gotten seriously injured. That was always a plus.

He heard the soft footsteps of a child coming closer to him — reminding him of another thing he should teach them, how to walk without making a sound — and he opened his eyes and sat up straighter. The child in front of him was fidgeting with her hands and looking down at the floor in an obvious sign of being shy. Iruka dragged himself out of his downward spiraling thoughts and leaned forwards so he could see her clearer next to his desk. "Do you need any help?"

The girl nodded. Iruka couldn't rests ruffling her long black hair when she was looking so adorable. "With what?"

"Chi-Chiyo-chan mast-mastered the leaf, the leaf exerc-exercise."

Standing up from his chair and then squatting down until he was at her height, Iruka couldn't stop himself from smiling at her stammering. "Did you now? Would you like to show me?"

She nodded and brought out two leaves. Still staring determinedly at the wooden floor, she dragged her hands away from each other and the leaves stayed stubbornly put, one under each hand. Iruka beamed at her when she sneaked a peak at her, cooing internally at the blush that went all the way up to her ears. "That's amazing, Chiyo-chan! You learned that in a week on your own?"

"Ami-chan hel-helped." she whispered to him in a low tone.

Iruka ruffled her hair gently again and said, "That's very nice of her. Did you say thank you?"

The girl nodded, her hair flying with the motion.

"You know, if she helped you, you should help her in return if there is something she doesn't know." Iruka grabbed the girl under her arms and settled her down on his hip without hesitating. "Now let's go find your family, ne?"

"Tha-thank you, Iruka-sensei." she hid her face in his shoulder as he carried her outside to the front of the academy, where her mother was, as expected, waiting for her with a worried look on her face.

Iruka walked across the grounds until he stopped right next to her and sat the girl back down on her feet. "Here you go, Takaba-san. She just wanted to show me something."

The young woman, with hair as black as her daughter's, smiled at him. "Thank you, Umino-sensei. I was getting concerned."

"No problem. Have a good weekend." Iruka waved at the girl as she left, her hand in her mother's.

The Takaba were a normal civilian family and to the best of his knowledge, their daughter would be the first ninja of the family if she graduated. It meant that the family had some wrongful perception of what being a ninja was like, but as long as it didn't damage Chiyo-chan's education, he wouldn't interfere. Clearing up the mistakes would most likely make them withdraw their daughter from the academy, and even years after the Kyuubi's attack, they still needed to bulk up their shinobi forces.

Returning to his classroom, Iruka settled down by his desk and took out the paper he had been fiddling with for a whole day now. It was to be the class schedule during the time he was their teacher. After some time, he had decided to make every other class physical training so they would tire themselves out enough to pay attention in the classes indoors.

Staring at the schedule, physical proof that he would actually be a teacher — it even had his name in the upper left corner! — Iruka felt his many doubts returning. But no, he had tried to appeal to anybody that had any authority over the academy and they had all been dead ends. Everybody was either busy with revising the new curriculum or they were occupied with other things. Regardless, they had no time left over for him and his concerns.

Copying the finished product on a new piece of paper, Iruka grabbed it and wandered off to the copier in the teachers lounge.

The lounge was at the top of the academy, a safe-zone that no child or parent was allowed to enter. All of the entrances were even trap-wired.

At this moment when Iruka entered — not that he had spent much time there, busy panicking at home as he was — there were only two other teachers present. Both of them were over twice his age and both of them were women. One of them, Suzume-sensei who had been his old teacher once upon a time, was a stern lady that didn't have any patience for dillydallying and the other one was a woman he had never met before, only seen around from time to time. Iruka nodded at them in greeting, and Suzume-sensei nodded back, even spared him a small smile.

He got a bad feeling.

Suzume-sensei never smiled and certainly not at him. During his academy days, he had been a nightmare, constantly pranking people and skipping classes. He liked to believe that he had mellowed out, was a better person now, but he doubted his old teacher would look at it the same way.

He moved over to the copier at the back of the room and set it to make thirty-one copies. Behind him, he could feel the sensation of Suzume-sensei staring at him, a very familiar feeling that spelled nothing but trouble for him. Suzume-sensei was creative in her punishments. They weren't just detentions or cleaning up, no, she demanded the best of her students. If he wanted to prank her, he damn well better do it the way a shinobi would.

"Iruka-sensei." Suzume-sensei voice made him jump where he stood and he cringed at how obvious a reaction it was. She continued, "How are your lessons going?"

He was having flashbacks to his days as a student. "Well. They're going very well."

"Hmm." he could hear the suspicion in her voice. "I heard you tried to get a meeting with the Hokage about your job. Is there anything you are dissatisfied with?"

"No. Everything is fine." Iruka hurried to reassure her. He wondered who had spilled the beans to her, and what she was thinking, but it wasn't really a mystery. Shinobi gossiped like old married ladies.

"Look at me." Suzume-sensei demanded and Iruka could do nothing but obey that tone.

He turned around to face her.

"Good." she rose a white eyebrow. "Now tell me what the problem is."

Iruka sagged a little where he stood and he went over to sit on one of the sofas near her. "I just keep... panicking. I don't know why."

Her mouth barely moved, but he got the feeling she was laughing at him. "Well that, unfortunately, I can't help you with. All teachers go through it. All it takes is practice and sticking with it, and there will come a day when you won't panic. It'll be a shock, I'll tell you, but you won't panic."

"Did you ever panic, Suzume-sensei?"

"Me?" now the old woman actually did laugh, a rough sound that made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. "No, I've never panicked a day in my life. I'm a kunoichi, child. We don't panic."

The other woman, younger then Suzume-sensei but still older than him, nodded in agreement and added, "True that. Unlike shinobi, we have nerves of steel. How else could we go through labor?"

Iruka had the feeling that they were in a dangerous territory and so only nodded in agreement without saying anything.

The copier pinged to let him know that it was finished, and he gladly took the chance it gave him to get away from what he had feeling would soon be bloodbath if he said a single wrong word. Rising from his seat, he nodded to the two kunoichi's and strode over to the back of the room, where he quickly collected all of the paper. With the pile in his hands, he nodded once more to the women in goodbye and then hurried out of the room. That was dangerous.

Iruka still remembered that one time Suzume-sensei almost killed one of her student's father for insulting her. Three other ninja had had to interfere to remove her and save the guy's life, miserable as it was for the rest of his lifetime.

Poor guy.

He was still completely paralyzed.

Hurrying for the safety of his home, Iruka forewent going back to his classroom and instead hurried outside. His arms were still carrying all of the papers he had copied.

Despite the fact that it was afternoon and the evening was rapidly approaching, the heat was still shining down on Konoha from up above. With summer so close, it wasn't strange to see steam rising from the ground where the sun had unlimited access. Iruka walked the streets of Konoha with no hesitation in his steps, knowing the village as well as the back of his hand. He turned corners and walked in-between houses in shortcuts and smiled and greeted the familiar vendors once he reached the marketplace. Once there, he turned off into a side-street and wandered in the direction of his home.

At home, he dropped off his papers and then he set off, this time to a training ground. As his career as a teacher had already died a truly miserable death, he needed to stay in shape for when he got back on active missions duty. If it was needed, he was still allowed to take missions now, but he didn't have to because as a teacher he had a fixed salary. Not as much as he could make on active missions, but better then nothing.

And Iruka was no waster, he saved every ryou he could and he had his family's savings too, so he wasn't exactly hurting for money.

But still, it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Iruka jogged through the streets at a decent speed to get his blood pumping and as a warm up. When he finally arrived at the high fence that separated the training grounds from the rest of Konoha, Iruka settled down to do his stretches. As annoying as they were, they needed to be completed.

The Forty-Fourth Training Ground was divided from the rest of the village by a large fence that had many warning signs stuck on it. Despite this, it was one of his favorite places to train, just because of what a challenge it was. If you didn't push past your limits, you wouldn't improve. Iruka had never been able to understand why more shinobi didn't train there. Sure, the animals were mutated into vicious, bloodthirsty creatures at least three times their original size and nearly all of the fauna was poisonous in some way, but that just gave it character.

Regardless, the fact that they avoided it just meant that nobody interfered with his training. Well, nobody but Anko, but she was a good training partner when they were there at the same time. Sometimes they fought together to improve their teamwork and sometimes they fought against each other.

When he was finished with his stretches, Iruka pushed up from the ground in a giant leap and climbed over the fence with the ease of someone who was well used to it. Once on the other side, he set off into the forest to train.

Four hours later, and Iruka was absolutely exhausted.

It felt like his bones was about to break under his weight, and his legs were so heavy that stones must be chained to them. Sighing where he laid on the ground just outside of the aptly named Forest of Death, he stared up at the evening sky. He might have gotten a little overzealous once he entered the training grounds and maybe he shouldn't have pissed off that tiger and he probably shouldn't have the bear, and ok, maybe he shouldn't have tried to burn down that carnivorous tree, it was... probably a mistake. But he felt so much better now. So much more clearheaded.

He had been panicking for a week straight now, regretting and drowning in his own remorse. He needed this. He needed to go all out, to tire himself out until he had no energy left to think of those things. Already, he felt so much better.

He wasn't going to doubt himself anymore. He had eight months to make up for his mistakes and he was going to do his best. No more thinking of what-ifs, no more wondering how things would be if he actually knew what he was supposed to be teaching them. No more agonizing over his mistakes. Iruka was going to be the best teacher he could be for the next eight months and if that didn't even measure up to someone else's definition of good, that was okay.

After he was fired or he managed to quit, the kids would get a proper teacher that would surely know how to fix his mess. He would apologize to them and their parents and soon enough, he would be running around on missions again. Eventually, his failure would be forgotten in the face of some other gossip.

He just hoped that the kids in his class would be able to forgive him when they found out the depth of stupidity.

Grunting at the pain of his thoroughly abused muscles, Iruka pushed himself until he was sitting up, and then he began the arduous task of standing. Once he was back on his feet, he drank some water from the flask that was stored in one of the storage scrolls always on his person and began the long journey home. He jumped up onto the rooftops and walked home that way, even if he almost lost his footing half-a-dozen times due to his exhaustion.

At home, he liberated himself from his clothes and took a long back in warm water, that eased the strain on his muscles. Iruka leaned his head on the edge of the tub and breathed out calmly, his gaze fixated on the white ceiling.

"Well," his voice echoed in the otherwise empty bathroom, steam rising from the tub. "this is it, I suppose."

If Iruka was failing, he would be doing so in the best way possible, as Suzume-sensei had repeatedly taught him. There was no time for doubt when you were responsible for thirty-one kids safety. He had made a mistake, yes, and now it was his duty to make the best of a bad situation.

He wanted to be a teacher, it was a dream he had had for some time now, and he wasn't going to squander what would undoubtedly be his only opportunity once the brass figured out just how much he had screwed up. He couldn't fix this, not entirely, but he could make sure that it wasn't time wasted. He could leave those kids with a working base, a base that they could then build upon together with a better teacher. Someone that would be worthy of their gratefulness.

The vast majority of his class was made up of orphans, a base would get them a head start over the rest of their peers at the orphanage if they didn't have what it took to be shinobi. It would let them get jobs, apprenticeships, even give them the tools necessary to leave Konoha if they wanted to try their luck elsewhere.

Iruka closed his eyes, rose his fist up in the air, and his voice echoed once more as he said to himself,

"You can do it, Iruka-sensei."

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