Chapter Text
Iruka’s first major Naruto-related heart attack comes with the boy’s first C-rank mission. Because Iruka is the one who raised him, she fears for her boy and his team. Because she helped train him, she knows he is ready.
She settles for holding Kakashi’s one-eyed, bored gaze until he relents and nods once in her direction.
The mission is supposed to be two weeks long: escort Tazuna to his village and come straight back with a few extra days thrown in to account for the bad luck of shinobi.
Kakashi sends word only two days in that they’ve been ambushed by two chunin-level nukenin. It’s then that the anxious dread settles in Iruka’s gut, and it takes everything she has to not request to be sent in as backup.
Then nothing. For a week there’s nothing, no word, and the anxious dread knots and twists its way up to constrict her chest.
Another week passes after receiving a short, vague missive from Kakashi, but there's no word on when they will return; they’re already a week later than they should be.
Iruka has taken to standing at the Gates every evening after her Mission Desk shift to wait for Team Seven.
Kushina is actually just about to send backup, Iruka hovering tensely in the corner of the Hokage’s office, when Peacock shunshins into the office and reports Team Seven’s presence at the Gate. Iruka breaks down in harsh sobs for a moment, all of her anxiety and worry releasing in one, dramatic moment. By the time Team Seven is actually standing before the Godaime, the chunin is once more composed and tucked behind her mask.
Kakashi gives the report. His voice is mechanical, odd, and he feels guilt and regret and exhaustion. Sakura is shocked, still coming to grips with the events of the tale her sensei weaves. Sasuke feels disbelief and anger, and no little amount of irritation directed solely at himself and his supposed shortcomings. And Naruto…
Naruto, for once, is quiet and withdrawn. Guilt, and shame, and anger, and regret, and loss are swirling so violently within him that it’s a wonder he isn’t doubled over sick with the force of it. Everything begins to make sense when Kakashi feels respect as he tells them about Momochi Zabuza and his apprentice, Haku.
Oh , she thinks. Oh, Naruto.
Because that boy’s heart is 100 sizes too big, and even if Kushina and Iruka have worked to shield him from the worst of it, the village still has been unkind to the jinchuuriki boy, and he has hurt because of it.
My boy .
Kushina dismisses Team Seven, and Kakashi leaves to walk Sakura and Sasuke to their homes. As soon as they’re gone, Kushina is kneeling in front of Naruto and hugging him tightly to her chest. He doesn’t cry, but he wants to.
Iruka waits until the two pull apart, and then she’s beside him, a gentle hand on his back, steering him from the office and to his bed in their home; he waits until they’re inside the door before he buries his face in her stomach and begins to bawl.
In broken, sobbing sentences, Naruto tells her about Haku, the brave, mistreated boy he had wanted to save so badly, about Haku’s master, Zabuza, who had raised Haku without being a father - how the two men had reminded Naruto so much of Iruka with their kindness, their drive to serve and protect, their willingness to ignore their own pain for the sake of others.
And - And it killed Naruto. It hurt him so bad to see that, to see his precious people - because Zabuza and Haku had made that list in the span of a week - suffer so greatly.
The chunin feels her own tears pearl on her cheeks as she clutches her boy to her, holds him close as if she will never let him go.
Soon enough he grows quiet, his empathetic heartache driving him to exhaustion, and Iruka tenderly undresses him and tucks him into bed. Just as she moves to leave, his hand ( Still so small , she thinks) snags her wrist. With a pained smile, she climbs in beside him and lets him curl up against her, face tucked into her neck and breaths billowing softly across her skin.
Tonight she’ll stay with her boy.
Her second Naruto-related heart attack comes with Kakashi’s nomination of Team Seven to the Chunin Exams.
Iruka almost - almost - calls him out right then and there in front of their Hokage and all of his peers, but she lets Starfish step in just long enough to control her temper and save herself from making an embarrassment of herself.
Afterwards, though, is a different story.
“What are you thinking ?!”
The jounin - her superior , and Kami-dammit, Iruka, pull yourself together! - eyes her blandly without saying anything.
“Are you trying to kill them?!”
“I think you forget,” he interjects smoothly, “that they are no longer in your classroom.”
His words are measured to hurt, and they do , but Iruka doesn’t care . Yes she knows she’s unhealthily attached to those kids, but she put her soul into them! Shouldn’t that mean something? “I know that,” she snaps back, “which is why I know that this exam will be too much for them!”
“So you just don’t have faith in their skills.”
“GARGH! You -”
“Or maybe no faith in your skills.” He quirks an eyebrow.
She freezes. What…? Was happening ??? Kakashi wasn’t going to chastise her and humiliate her and claim those kids as his soldiers? Which, really, wasn’t wrong , but she already knew that - just like Iruka knew that there was something fishy about the Chunin Exams this year: the real reason she wanted the rookie genin to stay away .
Kakashi has no window into her inner thoughts as she does his, but he is not known as a genius for nothing, and especially not as a genius known for his observational and deductive skills - for seeing underneath the underneath. “Every one of those genin that you taught is way more prepared for these exams than the last batch to graduate - and five teams passed their secondary tests as opposed to the projected three . If this is a matter of your own insecurities, then you have no ground for concern.”
His eye narrows, and Iruka feels herself shrinking back under the intense scrutiny.
“But you aren’t the type to allow your emotions to control your common sense, and you’re not bad at logical thinking. Ergo, something else is wrong.”
The silence stretches uncomfortably, and Iruka, who has rarely spoken to the infamous Copy Nin before despite their shared precious people, finds herself feeling picked apart and known - the kind of feeling one only gets when a mind a thousand times more superior to yours reads you like an open book.
“The Chunin Exams,” he states at last. “You know something about the Chunin Exams.”
Iruka forces herself to swallow around the lump in her throat and straighten, hands balled into fists. “Kushina-neesan knows everything I know,” she replies firmly but doesn’t add, And I only know because I help Godaime sort reports.
The brunette had spotted discrepancies in reports regarding Sunagakure no Sato; not intentional discrepancies, just details that didn’t add up based on what other reports had led them to expect. For the last month Iruka has been working with a select few to sort through the inconsistencies and put together an accurate picture of what the heck is going on .
“You didn’t say anything during the meeting.”
“It wasn’t my place.”
“But you know something.”
“Information I’m not at liberty to share with shinobi who’s security clearance I don’t know .”
He feels intrigued. “Do I have clearance?”
“Has Godaime-sama told you anything?” she shoots back, and Kakashi falls silent.
Another long silence stretches, this one more tense. Eventually the jounin relents, “Fine. Keep your secrets - and I’ll keep the kids safe.” Don’t think I won’t look into this , his eye warns, and Iruka squares her shoulders and lifts her chin.
“If you’re going to poke your nose into this anyway, which you will , then just know that only Kushina-nee and I are privy to all the details. If you ask Kushina-nee, she’ll probably tell you.”
Kakashi eye-smiles. “But where’s the fun in that?” He leaves her in a swirl of wind and leaves feeling rather disgruntled.
“ Jounin .”
The third Naruto-related heart attack occurs the moment slippery, malevolent chakra erupts from the Forest of Death shortly followed by what Iruka distinctly recalls is the Kyuubi’s chakra.
Naruto .
And Orochimaru, she would bet, just as Kushina and she had feared. Iruka is set to be summoned for Team Seven when they pass, though, and she knows that Kakashi at least warned them to be on the lookout for suspicious characters.
The moment Iruka is summoned into their midst, she is checking them over for injuries. Dark fingers grip small chins and twist heads back and forth, gentle hands pat down slim bodies, and worried eyes take in every detail; it’s how she finds the dark juinjutsu seal on the back of Sasuke’s neck.
“Oh, kami,” she breathes and falls to her knees in wide-eyed horror. Orochimaru .
She should have seen this coming. Sasuke, while not one of the last Uchiha like Danzo had tried to ensure so many years ago, is still a prodigy and currently the most vulnerable of his clan - a prime target for Orochimaru of the Sannin, mad scientist extraordinaire. Iruka had known that something was going to go wrong and should have kept a closer eye on the kids; she had no excuse for choosing not to.
“-uka? Iruka-nee?”
Iruka is drawn out of her stupor by Naruto’s voice, and she blinks at the scared teenagers around her. “Naruto,” she whispers, and then her arms are around him and holding him close, and she’s pulling the other two in as well. “Oh, kami,” she repeats. “I’m so sorry. I - I knew something was wrong, but I -” Her voice chokes. “ I’m so sorry .”
Sakura, ever the practical one, pulls shakily away. “W-What is that thing on Sasuke-k-kun’s neck, Iruka-sensei?”
The chunin stiffens, as do Sasuke and Naruto; they reluctantly part, and Iruka once more exams the mark. “A juinjutsu seal,” she admits eventually. “A complete one, too.” Under her breath, “Orochimaru’s been busy.” But, for all that the Snake Sannin was a genius, Uzumaki Kushina was Konoha’s Seal Master and Iruka her apprentice; they knew more than him on this matter.
She swallows again, forces herself to regain her bearings.
“I can seal it away,” Iruka tells them. “Kushina-sama will know more about how to remove it, but without the proper research I just don’t have the skill right now.” She holds Sasuke’s gaze, because this will affect him more than the others. “Too many teams have already passed both rounds, so there will be a prelim once the second part of the exam is officially over. If I seal it away now, you won’t be well enough to participate in the prelims, and you will be disqualified from the rest of the exam. However, this curse mark feeds on and uses your own chakra and emotions to sustain itself, so if you use too much or allow your feelings to control you, it will take over, and the results will not be pretty.”
The genin all share a wince, and the chunin realizes that they’ve already seen something right along those lines.
“From this point on, it is not a team effort; you all will advance on your own merits, so choosing to not advance to the preliminaries will not harm your teammates’ chance.” It’s important that Sasuke make this decision on his own while knowing that it will not affect his friends in any way.
Everything is silent while the raven-haired boy thinks - until he looks her squarely in the eyes and says grimly, “Seal it, Iruka-sensei. I won’t give my team a reason to not trust me in battle regardless of my rank.”
Pride swells in Iruka’s heart, and she nods. “Alright.” A deep breath in to steady her nerves. “Alright. We’ll have to do it here before anyone else arrives.” She guides him into seiza on the ground and motions the other two to stand back against the wall. At the chunin’s request, his shirt is removed for better access to the mark.
Now comes the hard part: withdrawing a brush and inkwell, Iruka mixes some of her own blood into the dark liquid and begins to write symbols that circle around and spider-web away from the juinjutsu mark. Each symbol forms a meticulously constructed seal that pulses faintly with power, and Iruka internally winces at the amount of chakra she will need to expend in order to properly seal Sasuke’s curse mark away.
10 minutes later the deed is done, both Iruka and Sasuke are collapsed on the ground, one in pain and both exhausted.
“Ruka-nee!” Naruto is kneeling by her side in seconds, small little hands - stronger and more calloused than she last remembered, actually - frantically checking her for injury. “Ruka-nee, are you okay?!”
She huffs a forced laugh. “S-Sure, Naru-kun, I’m f-fine. Peachy. Jus’ - Jus’ give me a secon’, ne?” Iruka struggles to breathe through the crushing sensation in her chest that often comes with extremely low chakra reserves. “Sak’ra-chan?”
Mercifully the pinkette understands what Iruka’s trying to ask and answers, “Sasuke-kun is alright, Iruka-sensei. He’s unconscious right now, but other than his pulse being a little quick and his chakra low, he seems to be fine.”
The chunin nods and relaxes into a puddle on the floor. “Yer sensei,” she murmurs, because she knows that Kakashi must be around somewhere (and she knows that he will have given his team some way to contact him in case of a true emergency).
Naruto nods once, expression one of stubborn determination, and whips out a small scroll; he bites the pad of his thumb and smears it down the middle before performing hand signs Iruka recognizes but has never used, and a moment later a small pug is before them in the middle of a cloud of smoke.
“Pakkun!” the blond shouts. “Ya need ta get Kakashi-sensei right away, dattebayo!”
The ninken takes a moment to look around at the state of Iruka and Sasuke on the floor, sniffs the air once and wrinkles his nose, then stands. “No kidding, pup,” he drawls. A moment later he’s gone, and all Iruka knows is that she’s tired .
“No! Ruka-nee, you gotta stay awake !”
“It’s alright,” Sakura soothes, and Iruka takes a moment to wonder why the girl’s voice sounds so far away. “Iruka-sensei just seems to be suffering from chakra exhaustion; she should be alright to sleep…”
Well, that’s tantamount to permission.
Iruka is out in seconds.
Naruto is the only one of his team to make it past the preliminary round, Sakura and her opponent, Yamanaka Ino, ending their fight in a well-earned double-knockout. Sasuke is able to watch from the sidelines and cheer his team on with Kakashi, but Iruka is left bedridden in her apartment for a couple days .
The blond and his friends - most of his graduating class, really - come and visit her as soon as they can. Kushina pops in, and so do Kamizuki Izumo and Hagane Kotetsu, two chunin that Iruka has become friends with during Mission Desk shifts and Chunin Bar Nights. Shisui and Itachi drop in, each expressing at least once their gratitude for her quick work on protecting Sasuke.
But then Naruto is off with Jiraiya to train for the final round of the Chunin Exams, and Iruka is back to teaching. She bumps into Kakashi once at Ichiraku’s and they share a quiet, impromptu meal before going their separate ways. The brunette fills up her extra time by doing more research into juinjutsu, and the special clearance she has long-since received allows her to even dig into what notes of Orochimaru’s the village still has. Kushina and she consult together often, and by the time a month has rolled around, they feel as if they have a strong working base for what they need to do.
First, the third round of the Chunin Exams.