Mission's Gift
Some of you may know me from LiveJournal, but Micah convinced me to make an account over here and post my stories, so here goes.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters. I just torture them for fun!
"What the hell sort of game are you playing at, Umino?!"
Pinned against the wall by the jounin's crushingly strong grip on his throat, Iruka didn't struggle. In the part of his brain that wasn't occupied with trying to fill his desperately aching lungs with oxygen, he noted the deliberate lack of honorifics.
"I'm not playing, K-Kakashi-sensei." Iruka rasped painfully.
The single steel-gray eye glittered with anger and a wave of killing intent radiated from the jounin.
"Don't feed me that crap, Umino! You know what I'm talking about!" A hand in a fingerless glove stabbed an accusing finger at the ground near Iruka's feet. There the subject of their battle sat, crying piteously. The distressed infant was giving off flares of near visible chakra. "That's a bloodline trait unique to the Hatake clan!" The voice had gone cold and deadly. "You're playing with fire, Sensei."
Iruka gasped for air, increasingly aware of the red rage and murderous intent radiating off the other man. "N-not p-playing…"
The fist flying at his jaw was something of a welcome relief. Iruka heard more than felt his jawbone snap cleanly in two. The pain hit him a moment later as he sprawled ungracefully to the ground; head pounding as he desperately sucked in air through a mouth gone dangerously askew.
But the world snapped into focus at the sight of the jounin reaching for the frightened, wailing infant. Before he could think about it, Iruka was between the man and the baby, kunai drawn. He had the satisfaction of seeing the single eye widen in disbelief.
"Brat!" A familiar voice thundered down the street, followed by an equally familiar chakra signature. "Back off before Iruka-sensei feeds you your liver." Tsunade strode up, hazel eyes surveying the scene and the crowd of witnesses. "That's an order."
Kakashi didn't move, anger and resentment flaring sullenly in his aura. Tsunade ignored him, turning to Iruka and softening her voice. "Put the weapons down, Iruka-sensei. Everything is under control."
Iruka straightened, allowing the tension in his shoulders to ease. Tsunade rested a hand on his shoulder, pulsing just enough healing warmth though the contact to ease the mind-numbing pain in his jaw.
"Hatake." She ordered, turning back to the furious jounin. "Take yourself home, shower and cool off for a while."
His glare intensified and Tsunade shook her head. "I didn't want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice." At a gesture of her hand, a pair of ANBU flanked the enraged copy-nin. Cold eyes stared back at him impassively behind the white masks, daring him to try them.
"Eagle, Serpent, escort Kakashi home to cool off until I summon him."
"Yes, Hokage-sama."
As the fuming Kakashi was escorted away, she turned her attention back to the cause of the squabble. Iruka had scooped up the infant and was doing his best to soothe it through an obviously shattered jawbone. "My office, Iruka-sensei. Now."
Ignoring the stares of those who had witnessed the scene, Iruka straightened his spine and followed the Hokage. When they got to the tower, she waved to Izumo. "Shizune's at the hospital. Fetch her for me."
She waved Iruka into her office. The door had barely closed behind them when Shizune arrived, panting and short of breath. "You called for me?"
Tsunade smiled at her assistant. "Do me a favor and check out the baby while I take care of this-" She gestured at Iruka's swollen and discolored face. "And if you can get him to stop crying, that would be a bonus."
Iruka reluctantly surrendered the child into Shizune's arms. She gave him a reassuring smile before taking the infant into the Hokage's private bathroom.
Iruka tried not to wince away as Tsunade placed warm palms against his throbbing face. She smiled and he blinked as she delicately blocked the over-loaded pain receptors in his brain. He relaxed into the warm depths of her healing chakra.
"I suppose it was inevitable he would notice." Tsunade murmured quietly as she worked a network of healing through the broken bone. "Though, for a genius, he's remarkably obtuse about some things." She sent a knowing glance at the chuunin, who simply blinked, a light flush making his scar stand out in high relief. They had had this conversation before.
Tsunade gently manipulated his jaw back into place. "I'm a little surprised it took him so long to realize. I though he was cleverer than that."
Panic filled Iruka, making his heart skip a beat. He struggled to convey his worries through an unresponsive mouth. "Dunnn 'etttt Aakkasss'ee aaake immm a'aayy." (1)
"Don't speak," Tsunade admonished sharply. "You've got a good fifteen minutes of forced healing before you'll be able to talk." Her hazel eyes softened at the look of terror in Iruka's expressive brown eyes. "The brat won't take him away from you, I promise."
Her lips quirked in wry humor. "I have a dozen tests I can do that can prove your relation to him."
Iruka rolled his eyes and stared at her, speaking volumes with his gaze. Tsunade blushed a little. "Dammit, you have a point. Those very same tests could prove other things too."
"Don't you think it would be best to simply tell him the truth, Hokage-sama; Iruka-sensei?" Shizune said quietly, cradling the now-pacified infant close to her breast.
Iruka shook his head frantically, ignoring the glare he got from the Hokage. She caught his head and forced him to hold still. "Don't move, dammit."
Tsunade released him with another quelling glare before turning her attention to her assistant. "If it were that easy, Shizune, I'd say yes. Unfortunately, there are a lot of… unusual factors in this case. I have very little say in the matter."
"Unusual factors?"
"Well, you know the circumstances of his birth, Shizune. Do you know why he was born?"
Shizune looked surprised. "Why? I'm afraid I don't understand."
Iruka clamped a hand around Tsunade's wrist. "Don'." His voice was still slurred, but quiet and understandable. "My story t' tell or not."
Tsunade's eyes saddened, but she stepped back. "I can see you're going to be stubborn about this."
A wry smile quirked the corner of the chuunin sensei's mouth. "Course. Woudn' be me otherwise."
(1) For those of you who don't speak broken-jaw Iruka, he said, "Don't let Kakashi take him away."