Title: Broken
Genre: angst? Yeah, angst works...
Characters: Umino Iruka and Hatake Kakashi (well, duh, look at my ship.) A few OCs, but they don't do anything but get killed spectacularly. Like Barbies with Cherry Bombs. smiiiiiiiile
Summary: Breaking is a fact of ninja life. Sometimes, though, it hurts a little more than it should. KakaIruKashi. Fluffy angst and sad romance.
Status: WIP...Part 7 of (tentatively) 20

The man turned, blinking at the old man. He sighed and turned back to the sunrise-to-be. "Good morning, Arutobo." He blinked. "But please don't finish that thought."

The woman chuckled lightly as she slid back into her own form. "Good morning, Iruka-kun," she laughed. "What are you doing up so early?"

Iruka didn't answer his hyperactive teammate. She sighed and walked closer, metal toes clicking lightly on pavement. Her hand slid over his back, rubbing in gentle circles. Iruka was forcefully reminded that she had done the smart thing before any of them had thought to do it, and demoted herself to a chuunin.

"Probably something close to the same thing you're doing," he retorted.

Her bark of laughter split the thick air. "Waiting for that overgrown child of yours, eh? How's Hatake-san doing, anyway?"

"No clue," Iruka sighed. "Haven't seen nor heard neither hide nor tail of the man in three weeks. How are Otri and Kouga doing?"

She sighed. "Otri's got a fever, Kouga's on a mission, and I'm stuck trying to house-train an Inuzuka dog while its sire is on a mission and its master is sick. I'm ready to kill something."

Iruka smiled humourlessly, sighing as he stared back at the sky. "I'm working the desk," he said finally. "I'll have to talk to you later." He turned to go, heading towards the stairs.

Arutobo caught his wrist, snagging him before he could leave. "Iruka-kun," she whispered. "Don't be afraid to turn to us, if you need to." She turned her dark eyes on his face, searching it carefully. "You dream about her, don't you?" she asked. "You dream of Sensei, right?"

Trapped in her watery gaze, Iruka bit his lip. He nodded, ducking his own head slightly. "Yes," he confessed. "I still dream of Sensei."

"Especially in weather like this, I don't doubt," Arutobo sighed, sitting with a boneless grace on the concrete. "Join me, Iruka-kun."

Iruka sat down. For a long time, he refused to meet her eyes. He shifted, looked the other direction, sighed, and fidgeted. Through it all, Arutobo waited, calm and steady. She was, after all, the mother of an Inuzuka. Iruka finally settled down and looked at her from under his bangs.

"Do…do you think we did the right thing?" he asked. "When we quit ANBU, I mean."

Her face softened. "Hatake's ANBU again, isn't he?" she asked, though it was more statement than question. At Iruka's soft nod, she sighed. "Iruka, we quit ANBU because we all agreed that it was doing us no good. Too many memories of Sensei, too much war, too much death… Iruka, we were only fourteen, and you were only thirteen. You shouldn't have even known about half the stuff you did on a daily basis.

"We were thrown into something we weren't ready for, Iruka. They pulled us straight from the chuunin exams and tossed us into jounin, then hurled us into ANBU, before anyone could blink, even. Next thing you know, they had you in the field, with Asuka as an op, and me as a handler. We may have been the Dream Team, but even we weren't ready for that."

Iruka looked at her. "Weren't we? Remember, Tobo, the first thing Sensei said? She said we'd been chosen to be ANBU as soon as they could make us that. She said we would grow up to be the most infamous spies Konoha had ever seen…the most infamous spies the entire world had ever seen, even. Were we not raised for that job?"

Arutobo sighed again, running a hand through her hair. "Iruka, we were chuunin for fifteen days before we started ANBU. Fifteen days. We weren't old enough to buy alcohol—had to be sixteen for that, if we were nin—weren't old enough to count as a vote in our clans—had to be fifteen and nin for that—weren't old enough to even fucking get a summer job, unless we babysat." She clutched Iruka's face between her hands.

"Iruka, do you not understand? We were given about six days to mourn the death of the woman who saved us, and then we were hurled into her world—told to replace her, essentially. You lost your virginity when you were eleven, Iruka. You were a whore at eleven. By the time you were thirteen, you had killed ninety-eight people, saved six hundred and twenty nine lives, and destroyed countless others. You could drink most of ANBU under the table—we all could, alcohol resistance was part of our training. You spent your fourteenth birthday in detox and rehab for a narcotics addiction because the med nin on your squad didn't watch building up your resistance properly.

"You spent your thirteenth birthday on the biggest, nastiest battlefield of the biggest, nastiest war yet, held together by a lot of silk thread and tape. Most of the nin present that day are either dead of old age or suicide. You spent your twelfth birthday learning the art of warfare, and underhanded spying. Your fifteenth birthday was spent undercover in Wave. You were later evacuated from there after your position became 'compromised'—read, the ANBU squad that hauled your ass out hauled it out soaked in blood, and they had to fight their way out. You spent eight weeks in rehab."

She looked at Iruka. "You're asking me if we did the right thing?"

He sighed, looking at her unblinkingly. "You have absolutely no idea if we did the right thing, do you," he whispered. "You still wonder if maybe more people might have survived if we had stayed, if more people would be more normal if we hadn't tried to save ourselves."

She sighed. "Yes. I do wonder that still. Nevertheless…we have to remember, we weren't sane when we went in there. We'd probably have gone Uchiha, had we stayed much longer." She chuckled dryly. There was no amusement in the sound. "At the very least, we would have ended up as fucked in the head as that lover of yours."

Iruka, too, laughed. "Are we not already, 'Tobo? Are we not already?"
----
Kakashi looked at the sky. Fuck, the sun would be rising soon. He needed to find a new hiding spot, and he needed to find it soon. Beside him, he could hear the gentle, metallic chime of Raidou's dog tags as the man's heart thudded in his chest. A tiny prod of chakra produced an equally tiny response of chakra, an 'all clear' sign that they both understood. Sharing a look, they made a break from under the thick undergrowth.

Overhead, a tiny sparrow raced, wings dark against the sun, dawning red and clear.