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The World Was All Before Him	By : SuishouTenshi Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male > Naruto/Sasuke Views: 2783 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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The World Was All Before Him
- SuishouTenshi
A/N: I wrote fanfiction instead of doing my thesis paper. Sadly, this chapter turned out completely different than what I originally had in mind. It was a big ‘WTF’ when I finished. But hey, it includes a canon character’s first appearance which I think most of you will like. Love me!
Act IV, Scene IV: Long Habits
Standing at the front entrance of Yondaime’s mansion in an apron, hands still damp and emanating the scent of dish washing soap, Kakashi was struck by a disquieting pang of hominess. Before him, Sensei was fully dressed in his Hokage attire, ready for another day at the office. Next to him, Naruto's jumpy enthusiasm was so much more blatant and noteworthy.
It was April. It was the first day of school.
Monumental as the occasion may be, Kakashi was sure both he and his sensei were more unnerved than anything else. Thus far, Naruto had been home-schooled alongside of Sasuke, educated in simple letters and arithmetic by the wise and virtuous Uchiha Mikoto. But the time had arrived for the two boys to mingle with a society of their own kind. Seclusion at home in the name of security was not a sensible option in the long run.
Naruto was overjoyed, that was obvious from the way he dragged Kakashi out of his comfortable repose in the guestroom and demanded “celebratory ramen” for this special day. The boy’s streak of hyperactivity was approaching three hours, and that was before school had even officially begun.
Yondaime was at the opposite end of the excitement spectrum. He held Naruto's fidgety fingers in hand, hesitant to take that first step leading Naruto away from home and toward an environment of unforeseeable possibilities. Kakashi had offered to take Naruto to school in Yondaime’s place, but Minato insisted on being involved in this occasion. From the way Minato was holding on to Naruto's hand, however, Kakashi figured the one who truly needed support was in no way the shorter of two blonds.
It wasn’t as if Kakashi himself wasn’t silently petrified by worry. After all, Naruto was a special child with very special needs. The fact remained that, unlike Yondaime, Kakashi wasn’t ready to wear his vulnerabilities openly on the strings of his “I Love Fishcake” apron just yet.
Naruto tugged on Yondaime’s arm. “Let’s go already!” he demanded.
Yondaime swallowed pitifully at Naruto's eagerness. He turned a puppy-dog expression of plead towards Kakashi and received a blank look of disinterest in return.
Kakashi watched as their backs went out the front gates and disappeared from view. He had to run a few errands and perhaps even go back to his apartment for once to clean up. Trying to put Naruto out of his mind for a day was a new kind of endurance training. He just wasn’t confident enough to make bets with himself on how long he’d last.
Yondaime Hokage stepped into his office with a new profound awareness of helplessness. His right palm was still clammy from the inhuman grip he had on Naruto's hand, stiflingly oppressive from a combination of fear, loss, and frantic regret.
He had never doubted himself so hatefully before taking that walk with Naruto to the Academy for the very first time. It was purely parental nostalgia at first, the supposedly normal and domestic ache at seeing one’s progeny so grown up. Yondaime even scoffed at himself a little, laughed at such unmanly sentimentality.
Then as they approached the Academy, eventually sharing the same road with other parents of first time students, Yondaime began to feel like an outsider in the village that had raised and trusted him since infanthood.
The scrutiny came first in the form of fearful glances, mothers who pulled their children a little closer as they noted Naruto's presence. Then there was the quiver that reverberated in everyone’s voices as they greeted Yondaime. Even as the most familiar faces—faces of kunoichi-turned-mothers—acknowledged a beautiful morning to their supreme commander, none could help but affix a sidelong glance or two at the boy at Yondaime’s side, at the son they all knew existed but rarely ever saw.
Yondaime had been afraid to look to his son for a reaction to this unsubtle inspection. He could only trust in Naruto's undisturbed pace and speech that the boy was either unaware or just didn’t care.
Relief came with the arrival of Hyuuga Hiashi and his daughter Hinata, and soon Sasuke with his own father in tow. Uchiha and Hyuuga began to talk politics, but Yondaime’s ears were tuned to the rambunctious conversation flying between Naruto and his two friends. Their already extant camaraderie managed to quell one tidal wave amid the squall that was Yondaime’s mental anguish.
Naruto had been ushered into the school building after one last hug that threatened to morph into immediate withdraw from the Academy’s vicinity. (Naruto probably would have protested with shrieks and kicks, but Yondaime would rather deal with a tantrum than to let his baby go.) Then, in the name of convenience, both Hyuuga and Uchiha decided to follow the Hokage to the tower.
Time for personal matters was now past, but even as Minato prepared for a closed door meeting with the two leading clan heads of his village, he could not stop asking himself for the first time since making the decree whether it had been a good idea to sacrifice Naruto's safety and privacy for Konohakagure’s unified peace of mind.
The fact that he could not answer that question should have been his first sign of warning for the troubles to come.
The doors and windows were properly locked, the room secured by the best privacy seals. Minato sat down behind his desk.
Removing all other chairs from the office was a preventive measure he took on his first day as Hokage. It ensured that at moments like this, trapped in an undesired situation with such powerful leaders, he would still retain the upper hand as the seated one.
“The climate at Mist is most unusual and disturbing,” began Uchiha Fugaku. Other, lesser men would have started on a hesitation, with a warning of some sort. A cough, maybe. But Uchiha had never been a man in need of preambles. Minato was grateful that Mikoto oversaw Sasuke and Naruto's play dates from day one. He himself was thankfully spared of any unnecessary social dealings with this man.
Rerunning the question in his head, Minato asked in return, “Er, is Mist particularly sunny all of a sudden?”
Uchiha and Hyuuga scowled at him with identical expressions of barely suppressed irritation. Minato felt just a pinch of betrayal that Hyuuga Hiashi was apparently in cohorts with Uchiha in this matter, whatever this matter may be. He and the Hyuuga clan head were never friends of any sort, but they did attend school in the same class. If any two of them were to team up against a third, it should’ve been him and Hiashi versus the older Fugaku.
“The political climate, Hokage-sama,” said Hiashi with his arms crossed and hands tucked into opposite sleeves. Minato had a feeling that he was clenching them into fists.
“Oh, right. Of course. The Mist.”
He had no clue what they were talking about.
Fugaku took a discomforting step forward. Minato was not impressed by this gesture of intimidation. “This sudden regime change is suspicious,” Fugaku explained for Minato’s benefit. “Their Sandaime Mizukage’s death warrants investigation. This new Yondaime is even more mysterious. For all of his apparent wealth, he was a non-entity before yesterday. Where did he come from? What does his political backings consist of? We need to put this matter as our number one priority.”
Puzzled, Minato spared a quick cursory glance at his dangerously stacked desk. Among a pile of the new day’s fresh reports, he could just make out a scroll with the Mist’s emblem stamped on it. Ignoring Hyuuga and Uchiha’s impatient glares, he put up a finger to silence them and skimmed the report.
It seemed like the Sandaime of the Mist village had passed away yesterday, and within hours, a new Yondaime was chosen, one with no fame, no name, no credentials whatsoever to speak of except for a significant contribution to the nation’s treasury.
Minato set the report back down. First thing first: “Hiashi, how did you hear about this?”
Hyuuga scowled at him again. “When Fugaku here informed the both of us no more than half an hour ago as we walked our children to school, Hokage-sama.”
Minato didn’t try to hide his embarrassment. To Uchiha, however, he said, “You found out about this before I did, Fugaku.”
Uchiha nodded without contrite. “My spies in Mist reported in late last night. I know you would take Naruto-kun to school this morning and thought I’d wait until then to ask you about your planned course of action. I wasn’t aware you didn’t know until now.”
“And I didn’t know you had your own international spies working beyond my jurisdiction,” Minato retorted back expressionlessly. He didn’t, and would never bother to ask about the man’s domestic spies. He had no doubt that all of the clan heads had their selected loyal followers deeply ingrained in every sector of the village government, if not the nation’s.
Uchiha wasn’t fazed by the disguised rhetoric warning. Instead, he met Yondaime’s eyes straight on and declared, “They are a part of my police force, of which you support and contribute funding to.”
“You mean the village’s police force, Fugaku.”
Silence stretched between them. Fugaku looked entirely too comfortable while facing possible accusations of this breach in chain of authority, and Minato no longer considered his own seated position to be one of power. The Hokage side of him is still steady and indifferent, but the trained killer in him is calling for a physical show of power over this man. He was having a hard time remaining static.
Even with two opposing instincts pulling at him, Minato recognized the importance of keeping silence. The one who spoke first, he knew, would lose this little battle.
Thankfully, Hiashi was there. He stepped in between the two men, expression no longer stretched by impatience, and said almost politely to Minato, “If this is still news to you, Hokage-sama, then perhaps we should come back after you have thought it over and discussed it with your councils.”
Minato nodded. Fugaku, taking it as his sign of dismissal, barely managed a bow before making his exit.
Hiashi stayed.
“Minato-kun,” Hiashi murmured when the two of them were left alone. Minato appreciated the drop in formalities.
“I know,” he replied with a sigh. He collapsed back into his chair. “This is my own fault, Hiashi.”
“Nonsense. The Uchihas’ power has been growing in the last decade. Sandaime-sama couldn’t have been able to prevent this either.”
A wry smile broke out, even though Minato didn’t feel like smiling in the least. He had too much pride to admit it to Hiashi, but he knew all too well the Uchiha’s political autonomy couldn’t have been possible without his help. And even more shameful was the fact that the wellbeing of Konohakagure didn’t even enter his mind throughout this whole process. All he ever wanted in return for the funding, for the extra manpower, for all of the unbarred, nearly illegal sanctions he granted unto the Uchiha task force was to secure a friend for his son, the son whom he had personally made into a pariah out of a guilty sense of responsibility to his village.
He tried to keep tabs on the police force even as he wrote the checks. No spy could tell him for certain how many unreported tortures the Uchihas had performed on their enemies, or how many secret technique scrolls they kept to themselves for study instead of handing them over to the Hokage library, or even how many branches of allied power they managed to build with the village’s money. For all that, they handed over to Minato their youngest heir, a cry-baby companion for Naruto to hold if he wished, to punch if he so desired.
A brand new guilt began to gnaw on Minato.
“Hokage-sama,” Hiashi spoke again, this time, with the proper title. It made Minato flinch. “If you’d like, I will assign someone to look into the Uchiha operation. I personally don’t think Fugaku has a coup d'état in mind, but one can never have too much intelligence.”
This drew out a real smile from Minato. “You mean to tell me you don’t already have spies in Fugaku’s compound?”
Hiashi didn’t bother to blush. “Just two Chuunin. No one too powerful in case they attract unnecessary attention. But the detrimental side of that is a lack of reliable and vital information. So far, I haven’t received anything of value. I’ll assign a more advanced operative if necessary.”
“And do you think now is necessary?”
Hiashi paused before saying, “No. Like I said, I don’t think Fugaku is attempting to form a coup. He’s too comfortable right now. But he’s always been wary of too much oversight, too much power over his head. If anything, I believe he just wants to assert his own power. Even his insubordination earlier was merely his way of proving to us that he is his own man, completely independent of Konoha.”
“I agree. That’s why I don’t want you to make a move.” Minato pinched the bridge of nose. His Hokage mantle felt especially heavy today. Fugaku needed to learn his place in the village hierarchy, and though he had no choice, he didn’t exactly want to be the one to give such a lesson. “A backhanded operation, if found out, would just make him into the victim,” Minato decided. “My provocation would have to be obvious, showy, even.”
“How?” Hiashi asked so eagerly even his pale irises seemed to glow. Minato swept the man up and down with his eyes.
It was time to clamp down.
“I will have to think about it.” He had already thought about it. Fugaku knew he wasn’t happy with him, so there was no point in holding back. He wasn’t about to spill his heart out to Hiashi though, not when the man had equally capable means of becoming another thorn at his side. He had already let his control slip on the Uchihas.
Hiashi must have sensed Minato’s reservation. He backed away, acknowledging temporary defeat. Just before he left Minato’s office, he gave his old classmate a strained smile and said, “Sometimes, Minato-kun, the trouble is not that you trust others too much, it’s that you believe in yourself too little.”
Seasonal changes in Fire Country were rarely obvious and yet, as evident of the gentle flow of cherry blossom petals, despite the year-round warmth, Spring tended to descend on its own terms and conditions.
In Umino Iruka’s opinion, this year’s sakura bloom was the most beautiful in recent memory. Of course, his personal elevated emotional state might have something to do with the overwhelming beauty currently dominating his vision.
At eighteen years of age, Iruka had finally passed his Chuunin exam the previous autumn, and to his absolute delight, was promptly accepted into the Ninja Academy as a teacher.
As one not exactly adept in the ways of the shinobi, Iruka considered educating Konoha’s youths to be his loftiest dream. He took the Chuunin exam twice, underwent only one level A mission in his entire career thus far, but had always loved interacting with children and trusted in his own abilities to be the patient and devoted instructor worthy of their trust.
Today was his first day. Excitement mixed with fear in his belly, churning into a need to move, to act. The first half of the day had proceeded as planned. Introductions, attendance, elementary rules were gone over without particular incident. But now, as his class was accompanied onto the schoolyard for recess by Mizuki-Sensei, Iruka was left bereft of distractions with nothing to do but eat his lukewarm bentou and contemplate about things he’d rather not dwell upon.
But he couldn’t just push it out of his mind, not when he could easily spot a hyperactive boy just outside the classroom window, a semi-permanent residence for the beast that had made Iruka into an orphan.
He was fine with the responsibility of leading an entire first year class. He was fine with the prospect of guiding some of the most precious children in the country. It was perhaps asking too much of him, though, to treat the Kyuubi vessel as just another child when Namikaze Naruto's cheeks were marked by baby fat and false whiskers alike, when Iruka’s parents’ last gentle smiles continued to superimpose over Naruto's mischievous grins.
Iruka inhaled slowly, his breath and body interrupted by shudders. Beyond the window panes, Naruto stood between Uchiha Sasuke and Hyuuga Hinata, the three of them forming a lonely collective of sheer prestige. The other children stayed far away, sometimes staring, but even from behind the shield of curtains, Iruka could tell that this isolation was not done out of malice. They were just children, after all.
Mizuki-Sensei followed protocol and stayed out on the playground purely for surveillance. He wandered around the perimeter and let the children interact freely. Most of them had already formed friendships. It wasn’t hard to get to know children in your own age group in a secluded village. The new heir to the Akimichi clan, for example, had a free fist wrapped firmly around Nara Shikamaru’s shirt hem, the two of them lay on an open stretch of grass away from other students.
It was clear that Naruto and his two friends were peculiarities. Every adult in the village knew that the Yondaime’s son had one and only one companion, and that Uchiha Sasuke was the Uchihas’ political bargain. Hyuuga Hinata’s addition was merely a recent addendum, and she was as much of an inaccessible enigma as the two boys. But what was common knowledge obviously did not apply to the children themselves. Naruto's round blue eyes surveyed the other playground occupants eagerly, head swaying side to side to take in all he could even as Sasuke desperately tried to jump into his line of sight, hungry for some attention.
Naruto's expression of frantic enthusiasm finally changed into one of annoyance when Sasuke had apparently blocked his view one too many times. He grasped his friend’s shoulders and maneuvered him away, all the while murmuring what looked like to Iruka’s trained lip-reading skills to be, “Get out of my way, Sasuke.”
Sasuke’s back was to Iruka, so he couldn’t read the dark haired boy’s comments, but he managed to decipher Naruto's subsequent reply, “And don’t call me ‘Naru-chan’ at school,” the boy said with a grimace. Then turning to Hinata, “But I can still call you Hina-chan. It’s okay because you’re a girl.”
He looked satisfied with his own verdict. But even from Iruka’s vantage point, he could tell that Sasuke’s shoulders slumped with disappointment.
For some reason, Naruto's entire face lit up. He leaned close to Sasuke, wrapping stubby fingers around the other boy’s wrists.
Naruto smiled brilliantly.
“Are you going to cry, Sasu-chan?” his lips said; radiant blue eyes glowed with delight. Then he shouted loudly to the whole playground, “Hey, everybody! Sasuke’s crying!”
Iruka shivered. Mizuki-Sensei was too surprised to jump in before all the students managed to crowd around Naruto and Sasuke.
The circle of four-year-olds momentarily blocked Iruka’s view. Mizuki-Sensei dispersed them pretty quickly. When the two boys were visible again, Iruka was now able to see Sasuke’s face as well.
The Uchiha child’s bottom lip was bitten through. His eyes were tinged with red but remained clear, no signs of tears in sight. Iruka couldn’t help but smile a little. Even at their age, shinobi children were strong.
But Naruto didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked confused at Sasuke’s triumph. Evidently disappointed, Naruto stared blankly at his friend for a prolonged minute. Finally, as if disinterested, he shrugged to no one in particularly and playfully punched Sasuke on the arm.
“That was boring,” Naruto said as he turned away, pulling Sasuke and Hinata along with him as he went around the playground making introductions.
Behind him, Sasuke smiled.
“That’s a first,” a grumbling voice suddenly manifested behind Iruka.
Iruka spun around, stomach in his mouth and kunai in hand. But even before his vision could stabilize on his intruder, his wrist was caught in an iron grip, kunai rendered useless.
Dismayed, it took him a fraction of a second longer to identify the man standing before him.
No, not man, not really, not when they were both at the tender age of eighteen.
“Hatake-san?” Iruka inquired in a very small voice. It could be no one else, this sight of a masked silver-haired teenager. Hatake Kakashi stood before him in a Jounin vest, one hand tucked away in his pants pocket, the other relaxing its hold on Iruka’s immobile wrist. One can always pick out Hatake in a crowd just by his silver hair. But there was the mask as well, the source of a persistent joke circulating around the village that Hatake came out of his mother’s womb in a mask.
And of course, there was that one lazy black iris of no particular significance, and another red one that was forever hidden away except in battle.
“Hatake-san was my father,” so uttered the legendary copy-ninja. “Please, just ‘Kakashi’ is fine.”
“Kakashi,” Iruka tried out the syllables on his tongue. Speaking the Jounin’s name alone made him take a fearful step backwards. Rumors about Kakashi were plenty, some so ridiculous that if applied to any other shinobi would sound simply preposterous. But looking at him now, Iruka could just believe that he’d taken out a squadron of Rock-nin on his own at thirteen, knew nearly one-thousand techniques by heart, and, if the Konoha kunoichi newsletter could be trusted, regularly kept an entourage of fair maidens for nefarious purposes.
“Yes,” Kakashi murmured, his word muffled by the mask. Finally, after Iruka had opened and shut his lips many times without successfully producing a word, Kakashi’s single eye squinted at the corner and a patch of his facial organs moved under the cloth, the only telling sign that he was smiling at Iruka in encouragement.
“Can... can I help you?” Iruka asked, his own voice embarrassingly subdued in contrast to the raucous laughter of the children outside.
Iruka couldn’t explain how he knew that Kakashi’s smile had widened, but that was what he understood. And he understood before Kakashi spoke that there was exactly one and only one reason why he would appear before him, a mere Academy teacher.
But Kakashi didn’t mention Naruto at first. He nodded his head towards the playground and supplied instead, “Sasuke didn’t cry for once. Even though Naruto wanted him to.”
Taking this odd conversation in hand, Iruka ran with it. “Does Naruto-kun encourage him to cry often?”
Kakashi shrugged. “They’re just children. We figured he’d grow out of it one day, guess that day is here.”
The Jounin’s nonchalance about this matter disconcerted Iruka’s teacher sensibilities, but it wasn’t his job to tell pseudo-parents how to raise their pseudo-children. Instead, he asked again, “How can I help you today?”
Kakashi fell silent. His masked countenance was no longer smiling, and no matter how Iruka tried, he couldn’t read Kakashi’s emotions with only one eye as indicator. It was even more unnerving since Kakashi stood so still, as if he were a real scarecrow and Iruka’s attention was a pesky bird.
“I just wanted to see what kind of man you are,” he finally mumbled.
Offended, Iruka bit back, “I’m a teacher. That should mean everything.”
Nodding, Kakashi put up an open palm in pacification. “I read your file,” he announced flagrantly.
Iruka fought hard to push down the outrage. He shouldn’t have expected anything less. Being Yondaime’s one remaining student and unofficial caretaker of the Hokage’s only son, Iruka doubted there was anything Kakashi couldn’t get his hands on.
“Has my background given you cause for unease?”
Kakashi just shrugged, still irritatingly calm.
Seeing that he wasn’t about to receive any direct accusation, Iruka went on, “I assure you I can separate my personal issues with my professional life.”
Kakashi was smiling again, patronizingly. “If we didn’t think you could disconnect thoughts of your parents’ death from Naruto's presence in your class, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Iruka shivered. He had no delusions about whom the “we” referred to. “Then why do you still feel the need to check up on me?”
“Like I said, I wanted to see what kind of man you are.”
Iruka smiled humorlessly. “This isn’t exactly protocol, Hatake Kakashi-san.”
“But neither is it against protocol.”
“True. I assure you, however, Naruto-kun will be fine under my care.”
“I have little doubt in that matter.” Kakashi’s eye drifted out the window. “My boy is very resilient.”
Turning to observe what Kakashi was watching, Iruka saw a rather comical sight of Naruto chasing Kiba around the playground, demanding the boy to be his new friend. Kiba was a fast runner, and he protested vigorously, but even as he ran away from Naruto, he wore an open smile and periodically looked backwards to check that Naruto was still in pursuit.
Swallowing, Iruka said to the man behind him, “He’s not your boy.”
But Kakashi was already gone.
- TBC
A/N: Title of chapter comes from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. Full quote: "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom." Blah... see you after I finished my thesis paper.
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The World Was All Before Him