Author's Note: The image of the Kyuubi standing like wrath and desolation over a torn Konoha has stuck in my mind for a long time. This story exists because I wanted to write about the inevitable Reconstruction that must have followed the containment of the Kyuubi, and also because I wanted to know what might make a teacher and a guardian out of a war-orphan. Be aware: this tale is old-school, as it was written long before canon had established anything about the Kyuubi.

All Fall Down

by Swiss

Chapter One – There is a Harbor

Naruto could hardly remember a time when he hadn't known this place, these walls. The smell of it came to him at unexpected moments, especially when he was away from the village. He'd be shaking out his pack for extra rations or pressing his nose into the collar of a favorite shirt as he yanked it over his head, and there it would be, all tangled up in the threads: Home-smell. Ramen and musty old parchment and a clean, salt-and-shell soap that was made, not bought.

It was in his hair, still damp from the shower as he made his way down to the endmost apartment. Though it was late, he could still see a warm light emanating from beneath the door. It was accompanied by a murmur of voices as he pushed inside.

A yawning grade-schooler was waiting, terrycloth rag clutched under his chin. "Took too long," he complained, reaching for Naruto's tub of soap and other bathing accoutrements. "Sensei says only kids can sleep in here – no bugs – so I hafta go wash."

Chuckling, Naruto bore his knuckles into the shaggy hair. "You're lucky he doesn't shave your head," he said, ruffling his own unorchestrated blond thatch in rueful memory. "The first time I slept over he claimed I had lice."

A theatrical shudder. "Nooo."

Naruto nodded toward the bath. "Hurry, then. Have you eaten already? Good. Where is he?"

A pointing finger indicated the kitchen where Naruto's sensitive nose could still detect the lingering remains of dinner. He licked his lips; when he'd gotten in from his mission he'd gone to his own apartment first, but one look at the bare cupboards and the cold, empty corners and he'd taken off for home. His true home, where there was food and safety and where he – like so many others – was always welcome.

He had to step carefully over a few quilted mounds as he passed to the source of the orange light. At the threshold he paused, barefoot against the wooden floor, and peeked inside. Warmth hit him hard at the sight of the familiar round table, and at its head, Iruka-sensei. He watched the man recline, stroking the bangs of a careworn child seated on his lap, and it evoked a memory so strong that Naruto could almost remember the feeling of the man's arms. He had once sat just like that, sprawled on his belly with his forehead dug into Iruka's neck.

There were a few other children, and their faces lit up when they spotted him. As one of the oldest, he was always treated to all the adoration due to a big brother. However, no voice was more welcome then the one which echoed last, a resonate tenor he knew by heart.

"Naruto." Iruka-sensei greeted him fondly, eyes crinkling. He teased, "You took so long in the bath I was starting to think we might have leftovers."

"I had to work up my courage!" Naruto dramatized, rubbing his arms and shivering so that the youngsters giggled. "Your neighbors are stingy! There's never any hot water."

"You do, as I recall, have your own apartment," Iruka reminded him.

"Aw, Iruka-sensei, it's so boring there! And anyway, I know you get lonely."

One of the brats seized his impetus. "That's why we come too," she said. Her mousey hair was too thin, like her face. "Because you're lonely."

Iruka looked around at the nodding faces, all murmuring that, yes, that was the truth of it, and his eyes burned just a little bit – Naruto could tell. "That's right," he agreed. "I don't like to be alone."

Routine carried on after that; Naruto helped himself to what remained on the stove – a sizeable portion that had no doubt been set aside just for him – while Iruka hurried those who remained awake into their long shirts and bed clothes. Naruto could hear him murmuring a lullaby in the next room, and hummed along as he started eating his supper. He imagined a time when he'd been the one pressed between borrowed covers and lulled to sleep with a song. It drifted low, in and out of his memories, one of many he'd heard in the night:

'Lie, lie, little baby –

The night that dims has winked its eye.

It moves the moon, slow in a circle,

But it's always the same, so never you fear.

.

The waves wash the daylight out of the tide pools.

The clouds stir up navy, purple and grey.

In the grass, the toad blows up its belly

While the crickets sing, 'Bye, bye, bye'

.

So too, lie, lie, little baby,

Still in the night, under black blankets of sea.

Under stars like eyes, you lie there sleeping,

And do not fear – I'm watching you.'

Soon after the refrain faded, the floor boards creaked. Iruka paused to lean against the doorway, obviously tired, and it struck Naruto in that moment that he'd passed up his old teacher in height. Reflexively, he flexed his own fingers, wondering when that had happened.

"Well, the hero is home at last." Iruka was grinning broadly, and – Naruto thought – proudly. "I heard about it this morning."

The young man shrugged in a way that was indifferent to his growing celebrity, and completely unmoved by the rapidity with which gossip moved through a ninja village. Concerned, he gestured to the place beside him. "Come sit down, Sensei. You look dead on your feet."

Iruka chuckled, but did as he was asked. "Mother hen," he challenged, and pursed his lips when Naruto stammered with outrage, unable to believe that he was being called such a thing. It was the comfortable banter of two people who had known each another for a long, long time.

Naruto crossed his arms over his chest. "A lot of kids tonight, Sensei. I saw two already asleep when I came in."

Iruka confirmed this with a shake of his head. "I hope it's only temporary." He tapped his fingers idly as he spoke, a nervous gesture Naruto recognized. "Their father was due back from a mission yesterday. With luck, he'll return in the next few days."

He didn't say what would happen if he didn't; obviously there was no other family if they were staying with Sensei. Naruto leaned heavily against the table, taking a moment to digest the news. It was a familiar story; he had heard variations of it dozens of times, and many more that were far worse. Strays, runaways, the abandoned, the abused. They congregated here, somehow, drawn by whispered word of mouth. Iruka bound up their wounds.

As he thought about it, an old strain of inquiry sparked deep in Naruto's mind. As a boy, he had taken for granted the shelter of Iruka's provision, only realizing later how odd it was. How odd Iruka was. He didn't know much about the way Iruka had grown up, only that he'd lived during the Reconstruction, and that there had been things so badly wrong during those times that nobody ever spoke of it. Most of the time it didn't bother him, but on nights like tonight he wondered. 'Sensei'. That was the word Naruto used for the zealous guardian he knew. He could even fathom 'prankster', since Sensei could be creative in rebuke; certainly, his students often groaned over his skill. Before that, though? Naruto didn't know the Iruka that predated the one who had always been his teacher.

A hand descending heavily on his shoulder shook him from his contemplation. "You must be more worn out then I thought if you're already drifting off. Why don't you stay over, Naruto? We have space."

Following behind him passively to appropriate more bedding, Naruto wondered, 'How did you get here, Sensei?'

How did someone who'd had no parents, who'd grown up alone, learned to reach out to other fatherless children? How did an orphan learn to cradle a baby? Who had taught him to care? Naruto wondered. Because he'd learned all that from Iruka.

His questions weren't easy to dismiss once Naruto thought to ask them. In the days that followed, they came back to him at odd times, leading him to investigate before he even realized what he was doing. First, it was just casual questions to older shinobi when he was out getting a bowl of ramen or when he was stopped for news from outside of the village. Some inquiries were answered freely, while others were shied from, but no one knew much about the boy who'd survived to become the last Umino in Konoha.

In the end, he might never have found out anything further if he hadn't gone to visit Sakura. She was working at the hospital, and after he'd kissed her cheek and said goodbye, he was hailed by a familiar voice when he was passing a recovery room. It was Genma.

The man was propped in an uncomfortable looking chair, placed beside a bed occupied by Namiashi Raido. Bandages peeked from beneath the edges of the blanket, but he seemed to be stable. In spite of this, Genma seemed a little drunk with weariness, strident lines under his eyes.

"Hey," he said hoarsely. "They tell me Iruka brought him in from the mission room. Internal bleeding. Next time you see him, tell him I appreciate that. You tell him thanks."

Naruto nodded, unsurprised to hear about sensei's timely intervention. Iruka had a knack for it. This wouldn't be the first time his attentiveness had allowed him to aid a wounded comrade. "I'll tell him."

For some inexplicable reason he lingered, watching these veterans as they played out the tired old scene of injury and vigil. They'd been acquaintances since he was a child, but Naruto realized he still didn't know them well. However, he had once passed the two jostling Iruka in the mission room, teasing him about where he kept the roll of bubble wrap he intended to wrap them all in. It made Naruto think about how long the older men had been in service together and gave him the nerve to ask, "Genma, did you know Iruka-sensei before his parents died?"

The Tokubetsu jounin's lips narrowed. Naruto was known for his impulsive way of speaking, but even from him the question must have seemed to come from nowhere. Genma eyed Naruto speculatively before finally making a jerky motion towards the end of the bed. "What's this about?" he asked once Naruto was seated. "What are you up to?"

Naruto prevaricated, glancing around the room, then down to his hands. Genma was watching him impassively, and Naruto realized with a jolt hat it was first time he had seen him without a needle working between his teeth. Finally, he cleared his throat and began to speak, hoping he could find the right words to explain. "He always looked after me, even when the council was making it hard on him. Even when everybody hated me. Now I'm an adult, and he still looks out for me."

From the bed, Raido sighed and both his visitors paused to gaze at the scarred cheek and chin peeking out from the blankets. When their eyes met again, it was with quiet understanding. There was more than one person breathing in this room because of Iruka's capacity to care.

"I never thought about it much when I was younger," Naruto continued. "That was just the way Sensei acted. Now, though… Well, I've been asking around about him, trying to find out what he was like before we met, but nobody wants to talk about those times."

Once again Genma took on that weighing aspect, as though he were deciding what to share. It was so frustrating, all the secrets that hovered around like gargoyles. But that only fueled Naruto's desire to know even more. "I knew Iruka," Genma said finally. "His father was a good shinobi, if a little harsh, and everyone knew his mother because she was a specialist. Then I was on active duty and that was all anybody thought about until the Kyuubi."

Kyuubi. The very word seemed to make the air taste yellow and sick, interrupting Genma who reached over to the bedside where a pitcher of water sat, sweating. He tiredly filled himself a glass.

"Anyway, after that I didn't see Iruka again until both of us were a lot older. Though one hears things."

"Like what?"

A keen peridot eye caught his own, shrewd and a little fierce. "I want you to listen to me, kid. Your sensei is a good man, but we're all every kind of messed up. Goes with the territory, and for those of us who remember the old times – well, maybe we're more messed up than most."

Suddenly the grey in the man's hair and lines of wages of worry seemed to stand out starkly against his cheeks and forehead. Naruto watched, mesmerized, and thought of Sensei who had his own creases, usually making happy little V's at the corner of his eyes. It occurred to him that he was looking at an endangered being: Genma, Raido, and Iruka…they had all outlived their life expectancy.

Naruto swallowed.

"Look, it's not my secret," Genma told him, leaning back and resting one hand against the hospital sheets, very near Raido's. "Still, I think he would tell you. The worst that could happen is that he'll say no, and then you'll have to act like a ninja."

Naruto didn't say so, but he had already poked through the entry level and intermediate files and found little about Iruka during the Reconstruction Period but the most uninteresting notations. Excerpts from them went through his mind as he moved over the rooftops. It read like a register of dry goods:

Post-Kyuubi Census. Status: Umino, Suihou and Kaitama –confirmed dead. Survived by: Minor-M-6/8, Iruka. Location: Unknown. Priority: Low.

The numbers and symbols had bewildered Naruto until he'd found a key to decipher them. Iruka had six years of training at the time of the Kyuubi attack, was male and a minor, and wasn't being housed or provided for by the village. At the time of the report, it seemed they didn't even know where he was. Naruto tried to think of how many orphaned or abandoned children there must have been at that time.

Naruto had found nothing else in the records until almost a year later: Status: Umino, Iruka – see criminal record.

After that, the rest of the packet had been just as dry as the first part: a graduation certification, academy records, a coffer of mission reports at various levels over time, a teaching certification and subsequent progress, known jutsu, medical history, contact and emergency information.

Yet it was that gap that stayed on Naruto's mind – that year-long gap right after the Kyuubi had been subdued, and the criminal record. He could not, no matter how hard he attempted to bend his brain around the task, imagine Iruka-sensei as a criminal. Iruka had only been ten or eleven years old at the time. What could he possibly have done? Naruto had tried to find out, but the information was nowhere to be found, and even as the village hero he wasn't certain that he could get away with trespassing upon the higher-clearance files. A certain level of leniency was given to snooping – after all, Konoha was a shinobi village – but beware to those who meddled over their heads.

No, Naruto thought. Iruka had taught him that if you wanted to cut down a tree, it was better to saw at the trunk than to hack at stems. And that led him back where he started. To a table in the night with children swaddled nearby and his most precious person looking back at him across the table, blinking in confusion.

"What did you want to talk about, Naruto?"

Author's Note: Dear readers, this is one of the stories that did not go back up when I reposted, mostly because I didn't consider it one of my best; however, a recent reviewer brought it up by name, and so I thought I would answer their request. Enjoy!