Naruto Fanfiction: Written, Erased, Re-Written [ch.3]

[tellytubby101]

Written, Erased, Re-Written.

Summary: It’s not enough to capture a man. You need to be able to break him. But how can you cripple something already so damaged? AU, still in Naruto’s world, but a far cry from canon events. Eventual KakaIru.

A/N: Since I’m having fun writing this, does that technically make me a sadist?

[ chapter one | chapter two ]

¥¥Y¥¥

“It’s not working.” Ibiki sighed heavily, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “Whoever worked him over took their time and didn’t cheat with jutsu. It’s deep.” Deeper than even I know how to cure.

It was impressive in its own way, the power of brainwashing over Umino. Impressive, but hardly worthy of commendation; there were shadows of cracks—there was a way of forcing them open, but it seemed pain was not the answer here.

He watched Tsunade bend her head and brace her forehead on her clasped hands. A part of him wondered how she was taking this. Her life was an upheaval as it was, learning the ropes of leadership, preparing to take the reins of Hokage now that the Third wanted to retire. Even with her mask of eternal youth, her eyes showed a weariness illusions couldn’t hide.

Clearing her throat, Tsunade finally croaked out in a dry voice, “It has to work.”

She wordlessly pulled a bottle out of her desk and glared at her assistant, Shizune, as if daring her to say something. When no protest arose, she gulped a good third of the alcohol down without batting an eyelid.

“For his sake it needs to work.”

Without saying it, he knew she wasn’t talking about Umino, the bastard that didn’t quite deserve the label of traitor. Her eyes drifted to the small body curled on her couch, hidden under layers of blankets. Ibiki wasn’t quite sure of Naruto’s story with the young man sedated three stories underground, but Tsunade seemed to know enough that she was desperate to fix him. Something about the teacher being the first person to acknowledge the boy.

“I think we should get Naruto to talk to him,” Ibiki suggested slowly after a pause.

Tsunade was shaking her head. “We’ve tried that—”

“No. Get him in there. Alone.” Ibiki had concluded that last point was vital to see a change. Naruto always did have that effect on people; that ability to see the good in the bad.

For that very reason, the regent Hokage had an incredible soft-spot for the boy. After all, he convinced her to return to Konohagakure when none other could. It remained a mystery to all but a handful how a fresh faced genin convinced a Sannin—of all people—with a massive blood-phobia to return as not only a Hokage, but a medic-nin.

If anyone could bring back Umino, it’d be him: the Child of Prophecy.

She bit her lip anxiously before asking, “Isn’t that a bit—”

“Dangerous? I doubt it,” Ibiki countered tiredly. He’d raked the mental information he had on all parties involved and this idea had the highest chance of actually working, alongside with the lowest danger rating. “Naruto is a fully qualified chuunin with two masters as teachers.” Though the Toad Sannin and Kakashi would probably both snort at the idea of being labelled masters. “His opponent, as it were, is a drugged man strapped to a bed. There’s not that much room for battle regardless.”

“I was actually a bit more concerned about how Naruto would cope,” Tsunade countered lowly, absentmindedly tracing the opening of the bottle with her index finger.

“Naruto is the only one that makes him react,” Ibiki pointed out firmly.

“But he forgets immediately after.”

“Then don’t give him a pause to forget.”

Lady Tsunade hummed under her breath, clearly deep in thought, weighing the pros and the cons. Umino’s situation needed to be cleared up, fast. Root weren’t the only ones curious—the Council were starting to wonder what was taking up the Hokage and the Head of T&I’s time.

“I’ll do it.” Naruto’s voice almost startled the two adult ninja if they weren’t so well-trained. He was lying on the couch, eyes staring up at the ceiling blankly. “If there’s a chance, then I need to take it.”

The regent Hokage started softly, “There’s no guarantee—”

“Better a slim possibility than none at all.”

Naruto threw the blankets off him, and Ibiki saw the youthful face set in that expression, one of sheer determination and will—one that made you believe in him, wholeheartedly without solid evidence. It echoed that of the Fourth Hokage, but maybe even stronger.

It was the face of what could be the future Hokage of Leaf.

¥¥Y¥¥

“How many relapses?” The heavily resignation in the Hokage’s voice made Shizune want to wince, but instead she shuffled through some papers and scanned them for the information.

The jounin bit her lip before answering Tsunade. “Eight.”

“And he’s still—?”

“You know Naruto,” Shizune murmured with a tired, yet fond, smile, tucking stray strands of her hair behind her ear. “He never knows when to quit.”

“His perseverance might one day be our saviour,” intoned Tsunade, fingers stained with ink as she trudged through paperwork, “Or his downfall.”

Another time, another place, and Shizune might have been thankful to see Tsunade finish report after report. But she knew the only time Lady Tsunade committed to paperwork was when she couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t sleep because she was anxious. What made a Sannin anxious definitely deserved some concern.

The Hokage may have been forever youthful, but Shizune could see the invisible weight of time dragging her down.

She needed sleep, the brown-haired jounin thought disparagingly. Since she knew that the Slug-Sannin would never go for that, Shizune brought the next best thing.

“There is some good news.”

Tsunade looked up; her brown eyes earnest and patiently waiting to hear the jounin out. Shizune straightened her back, always striving to earn that trust she saw in her mentor, her role model since as far back as she could remember. Since I cannot protect you, I will do my best to comfort you.

“I’ve been running the blood tests. Umino’s blood always was full of chemicals, ones we added, ones that were there since his capture and we never really could identify as anything other than toxic poisons—”

“How is this—?”

“Let me finish. Ever since the shock therapy, the amount of foreign matter is going down. It may be a result of time, too; we know how strong chemicals can be as a controller.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Umino’s ability to block memories will fade. Not entirely, but a good chunk of his past will forcibly surface. Everything else is left to fate.”

“Perhaps not fate, but a child who won’t quit. Maybe Naruto has more hope than we thought.”

Shizune smiled. “Lady Tsunade?”

“Yes?”

“You lost the lottery. All of your tickets lost miserably.”

A short bark of laughter came from the Hokage as she stamped another scroll. “Today might not be a complete loss after all.”

¥¥Y¥¥

“Is that name meant to mean something to me?” Iruka asked wryly. “You murmur my name adoringly, with fondness, with care, but I am not that dead man.”

Kakashi gritted his teeth as he watched behind the mirrored-glass, crescent-shaped indentations cutting into his palms as blunt nails dug into his skin. Just because his charge had to do this alone—insisted it, really—it did not mean he wouldn’t stand guard in case something went wrong.

Yet there already was so much that was inherently wrong with the situation.

Sometime after the less-than-successful electro-shock therapy, Shizune had gone in and cleaned up the prisoner. Cut his hair, bound his wounds and cleaned his skin of the accumulating grime. Washed, the hair was browner than black, and it fell just below his shoulder now, instead of curling at the hollow of his back. It framed a starved face, but Kakashi swore he saw familiar edges around the ebony eyes—

No.

Turning away, he looked at his former student instead, looking at how his hands were twisting nervously on his lap, before they gripped at the tarp-like material of his jumpsuit. With the glass the way it was, slightly warped and rippling with re-enforced chakra-infused barriers, Kakashi wasn’t sure whether he could say Naruto’s eyes were tearing up or not.

“Iruka isn’t dead,” the boy said after a lull. “You’re not dead. Please don’t say that.”

“Just because you’ve brainwashed me into thinking I knew you as a child—”

“We didn’t brainwash you!” Naruto cried out in frustrated anguish. He’d been talking ceaselessly for an hour now, trying to twist his way out of the prisoner’s logic. “He brainwashed you; that bastard who took you away; that bastard who stole Sasuke from us—”

“Dearie me, I think you’re under a misconception.” The smirk might have been familiar, but the face was too sharp, the curve of the eye too bitter. “The young Uchiha brat came along very willingly.”

“Since when have you thought kicking and screaming constituted consent?”

“Children,” Iruka bit out directing his voice not at Naruto, but to himself. Or perhaps he was talking to Kakashi behind the glass. It was hard to tell. “They are so fucking innocent, aren’t they?”

“Iruka-sensei, look at me!” Naruto screamed, jumping up from his seat.

His shout didn’t even startle the man in the bed, who turned to Naruto with a dead gaze and a blander smile. He’d forgotten again. The cycle restarts.

“I don’t—I have no idea what they did to you, but I know you.” Naruto’s eyes were so very blue. “Iruka, you can pull through this. Didn’t you tell me not to let others blind me from my ninja way? Remember. Remember us? You used to feed me and care and just—”

“Naruto; that’s your name, right?” Without waiting for a nod, Iruka continued with a biting smile. “I don’t really give a damn.”

Kakashi punched the wall and the stone cracked beneath his fingers, the smell of blood and copper and rust surrounding him.

¥¥Y¥¥

The boy was crying. That wasn’t good. Iruka cocked his head to the side and said, “Stop crying.”

“I’m not crying,” he replied in a cracked voice. His throat was probably swollen. This kid was a shoddy liar. Still, the crying was unnerving.

“Seriously, stop crying.” As an afterthought, he added, “Please.”

“No.” The tears trickled past the odd little whisker marks and dripped onto glaringly orange pants.

Iruka huffed and slammed his head back on the mattress. This was tiring. His head was constantly cracking with static and he was starting to forget his mission to get some... thing. A scroll, right – a forbidden one with... what?

He needed Teacher. Teacher would remind him.

—it was cold, Teacher was cold, everything cold—

If not Teacher, then his fellow student: the one with glasses and the cruel smile. He wasn’t as good as teacher, but he could help jog Iruka’s memory.

Everything didn’t hurt. Just his head. Time flowed like sticky honey. His arms were dead weights by his side. The buzzing didn’t cease and he couldn’t remember his mission. If he could be bothered, he would be twitching in agitation.

As it were, all he focus on was the kid crying.

“I don’t like children crying,” he snapped suddenly, then stopped short. That wasn’t right. Well, it was right. It was true, after all.

Iruka frowned. He had little to no contact with children, and when one started crying, he was usually out of the vicinity long before it could get annoying.

—the children were crying, screaming for their mothers in the middle of the night—

“What else don’t you like about children?” the boy asked cautiously, eyes shining and bright. Something tugged at the back of his head but the feeling passed like so many other leaps of intuition.

Since it stopped him from making those strange gasping sobs, Iruka could humour him.

“I don’t like their sticky fingers, for one. I don’t like them making a mess. I don’t like it when they hurt themselves,” he sighed and relaxed minutely. “I don’t like it when someone hurts them. I don’t like it when Naruto decides to do a test on the toads in the garden – it always makes the girls scream, and that’s a headache of its own—”

The mirror reflected the small smile on his face and he wiped his expression clear without another thought.

Turning to the boy beside his bed, he snapped, “I don’t like it when boys try to bother me with stupid questions.”

The kid didn’t seem to notice the bark of irritation directed at him. Instead he said, “You said Naruto.”

“Yes, that’s your name.”

And everything slotted into place. Yes. Naruto. That was right. Golden spikes and a brilliant white smile and skin that was always tanned even in the darkest winter days. Warm, always very warm.

There was no static and his mind felt a little lighter. Was this part of the mission? The thought entertained him offhandedly until Naruto spoke again in a soft voice.

“How do you know that, Iruka?”

“That lady told m—no, um, that’s not right. I know it because—”

No answers. Nothing came to mind. Iruka was never told; never introduced to the boy. He wasn’t a boy, he was a young man. But that wasn’t important because Iruka doesn’t remember how he got Naruto’s name.

—Naruto? Like the fish cake swirls in ramen, right?—

—Haha, yes! That’s my name!—

—Nice to meet you, Fish Cake! I’m Umino Iruka—

—Brilliant; we can be fish cake and dolphin!—

His mind felt itchy, and if his arms weren’t strapped down he might have tried to claw at the skin. He had no answers because teacher had the answers.

Except... Teacher said he was the only one who knew Iruka’s name.

Could Teacher have lied to him?

“Can you believe it? You knew me before you knew him.”

“I can’t—” Iruka was shaking his head and his eyes were darting anywhere but Naruto’s face. Static was coming back in. Buzz, buzz, buzz.

“Yes!” Naruto exclaimed excitedly, jumping up in a way that didn’t draw attention; it demanded it. “You knew me first, and loved me before that bastard. Just admit it.”

Iruka frowned and haltingly admitted, “I know you. I know you but I don’t have any idea who you are.”

Naruto smiled blindingly and said, “That’s enough for now.”

¥¥Y¥¥

“Hello, Scarecrow.” Iruka felt kind of dull around the edges. The world was all gray when Naruto left. Like he’d taken the colours with him. Stole them.

“Hello, Umino.”

Scarecrow didn’t look different. That was because he was in shades of black and white. Always shades of black and white. And navy blue, Iruka supposed, as well. White and black and purplish-blue. Like a bruise on pale skin.

“Please, call me Iruka,” he said tiredly around a half-covered yawn. “You’ve seen me strapped to a bed. You’ve seen me naked. I think the idea of formalities is shot.”

“You’re the one who always goes on about manners.” Scarecrow moved to sit where Naruto once sat, spinning it around so he could straddle it and rest his arms on the back. He still loomed when sitting, so tall and scrawny. Iruka wondered whether he noticed how his shoulders were slightly hunched, like he was trying to hide within himself.

“I appreciate that you’re trying,” Iruka said, licking his lips and tasting dried blood and copper. “Still, it’s hard to clean a barbarian of all its muck.”

There was a pause filled with an eerie kind of silence; one you’d think would have creaks and cracks and the sound of exhaled air, but there was simply nothing.

—like in the basement so black you were blind—

—so quiet you were deaf—

—biting your own tongue to taste the rust and know you were alive—

“It’s my turn,” Scarecrow said quietly, his single revealed eye watching his own hands. Iruka wondered why the other eye was covered: was it an injury? Removed in torture?

—pulled out, put back in, just to hear the screaming—

Ripping himself out of half-remembered daydreams, Iruka muttered, “Your turn to what; to talk to me? Urgh, another round of headaches, I suppose.”

“The headaches are there because you’re blocking yourself.”

It was exactly the same advice the ladies gave him: the one with the booming voice and the quieter one with gentle hands who cleaned him up, cut his hair.

Iruka replied, “I don’t block anything.” Which was true. Definitely true. Teacher blocked for him because Teacher knew best. Knows best? Knew best? Knows? Knew? What does Teacher know now?

“I was thinking...”

“That must have been hard for a Leaf soldier,” cackled Iruka around a laugh.

Kakashi gave him a sharp stare, and Iruka shrugged as best he could with the leather belts holding him in place. When the jounin raised an almost disbelieving eyebrow, Iruka bared his teeth in a shadow of a smile.

“I was thinking that if you remember Naruto, you might remember me.”

Another person who thought they knew him. Iruka thought it was utterly ridiculous. Yet a part of him thought, Teacher lied, Teacher lied, Teacher lied, like a continuous chant of disbelief.

“For that, I’ll need your name.”

There was a pause. The jounin was weighing the pros and cons and maybe how much trust they’d accumulated over the few months together. It wasn’t much at all.

“Funnily enough, it’s Kakashi. Hatake Kakashi.”

It was tragic, really, how those eyes danced with what looked like hope. Or longing. Or something really pointless. All emotions were pointless. They were weights bringing you down when you needed to fly.

—love is just another barrier—

—let me knock them down for you—

Iruka smiled. “Your parents must have hated you, calling you something so ridiculous.”

Kakashi’s gaze turned from hopeful to a steely look that could shatter glass. “This coming from the man named after a fucking fish.”

“Mammal,” Iruka corrected vaguely to the now empty room. “Dolphins are mammals.”

Silence reigned and the static left his ears. What good was hearing when there was nothing to be heard? So he slept and tried to dream because in his dreams Teacher was there.

And Teacher would fix it.

¥¥Y¥¥

“Oh. Hatake Kakashi,” Iruka gasped lightly into the empty room. His cursed mark was burning his shoulder and he knew it was night and that the full moon was out but oh, he remembered now.

Pain was familiar, so easily forgotten in the thrill of realization. Understanding filled him with a kind of warmth that made his blood tingle in anticipation.

Kakashi was the name of the Copy-Nin. That was someone teacher wanted dead.

And what Teacher wanted, Teacher got.

¥¥Y¥¥

A/N: Yeah. I’m sadistic. XD