Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Guardian ❯ Face to Face ( Chapter 1 )

Hullo all, been a while. This chapter took its sweet time getting here. It's kinda funny that I did have part of this chapter written out, but decided to delete it. It just wasn't flowing very well. Thus this here is v. 2 of chapter 2. But really, that wasn't the reason this thing's so late, I was just plain lazy. Not an excuse, but the real cause. And for anyone that cares, this fic can also now be found on TONFA, so wootage for that.

 

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, Studio Pierrot, Aniplex, VIZ Media, Cartoon Network, YTV, Jetix, ToastedTV, and others. This is purely a fanmade work of fiction by Miashin and is not intended for any monetary gain.

 

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All you need to start an insane asylum is an empty room and the right type of people.

Unknown

 

Chapter 1

Face to Face

Iruka looked at the door in front of him wearily. The literal `entrance to the demon's lair' and it wasn't locked. Iruka's first thought was of what a fool this kid must be to just leave his door open but then he amended that a demon probably had little to worry about from the common passer by.

 

So there he was, the door open just the barest crack and him pondering how he was going to get through this. Above him passed the occasional tap taper of the passing ninja. The demon's apartment was on the top floor, thus one of the cheapest in the entire complex because of all the noise passing ninja could make, and danger if said ninja decided to engage in combat.

 

Iruka himself had once had a top floor apartment and had abhorred the experience. But he was a ninja too, for him the risks were at least somewhat lessened. He took a deep breath, that's right he WAS a ninja, a chunin, and he could handle such a simple, or not so simple, task with all the professional decorum expected of him.

 

He opened the door and stepped inside.

 

It was…..very drab looking. Boring even. There was barely anything to hint at the fact that someone lived here. The apartment felt more like a motel room then a long term living space. The door made an odd sound as he closed it, getting his attention. Opening it again he checked the side to find that the lock had been forcefully removed. Oh yeah, he'd read this in the pre-mission report, Uzumaki liked to greet new caretakers by locking them out. It seemed some well to do citizen had taken it upon themselves to remedy that by removing the lock, or maybe it had been the landlord who'd probably gotten tired of people begging him to open the door.

 

Iruka shrugged the problem off and re-closed the door. The actual apartment was a three room affair. The main room held all the essentials; a small kitchenette, separated from the rest of the living space by a counter, a dining table to serve as the transition from kitchen to living space, and then of course the rest of the room containing an old beat up sofa, and tea table and….nothing much else.

 

 

“Excuse me for the intrusion.” Iruka muttered more out of habit then anything else, as he slipped his sandals off and began to walk around the apartment. His bag of personals was deposited on a chair by the dining table as he entered the kitchenette and checked on the fridge. The milk was expired, but everything else seemed to be okay, mostly because there were very few other items that perished as quickly. The freezer was completely empty.

 

The cabinets were equally barren in food supplies, but were well stocked at least in kitchen ware and cleaning supplies. Iruka did find a potato under the sink that had been left there for enough time to grow quite and elaborate root system. He didn't touch it.

 

On the opposite wall from the kitchen were two doors. One lead to, what Iruka had always thought of as `breadbox' bathrooms because of they're small and cramped size, containing a sink, toilet, and extremely small and cramped shower. The bathroom door also had a lock on it, this one perfectly intact.

 

The second door then, Iruka deduced, would lead to the bedroom. He stalled in front of this door. It was a bedroom, he really shouldn't be entering uninvited. Then again he really shouldn't have entered the apartment uninvited, especially at seven in the morning. Was the demon asleep, awake, did he know Iruka was outside the door, was he waiting to spring on and devour the ninja as soon as he entered?

 

Iruka shook his head. No, this was a mission and he would treat it as such. No fears, nothing, would stop him. He turned away from the door and pulled the futon he'd be sleeping on from his bag. He placed it carefully in the corner between the kitchenette counter and the wall where he would have a constant and clear view of the bedroom door. “Just in case” Iruka thought to himself, it never hurt to be careful.

 

Next he busied himself with making a mental list of the food products he'd need to buy. He really was surprised at the cleanliness of the apartment, though it stood to reason that the caretakers and maybe even the demon would wish to live in a clean environment. Now if the place actually FELT lived in, he might feel less like he was in the wrong place.

 

Wait….was he in the right place?

 

Putting the list into the back of his mind he went to the door to check. Yup, that was the right number. As he closed the front door he heard a click from behind and turned to see the bedroom door open. For a second his breath caught in his throat as he was assailed by a myriad wave of emotions; anger, fear, and surprise being just a few. And then he saw Naruto for the first time.

 

It was rather…anticlimactic. The boy was small, even for his age. He wore a pair of black shorts and an orange shirt with a black outline of a frog in its middle. Dirty blond hair, not the color but actual dirt, smudged cheeks, and obvious grime on his hand covered the child. When was the last time this kid had taken a bath? The child rubbed his eyes tiredly and blinked up at Iruka. “Who're you?”

 

Iruka quickly added rude to the many words that were describing the boy. Taking a deep breath and biting back on his temper Iruka spoke, “I'll be your caretaker for the next month.” He had been expecting quite a few replies to such a statement, mostly protests. “You don't look like one.” Had not been on the list and of course that would just have to be the boy's next statement.

 

The chunin's eyebrow twitched slightly, what was THAT supposed to mean. Did he not look responsible enough? He was wearing his headband, even if the rest of his clothes looked civilian, which alone should have been enough to avert such a statement.

 

“What's your name?” Iruka's thoughts derailed; seriously did the kid have no idea who he was talking to with such disrespect. Ignorant joined the list along with rude. “Umino Iruka.”

 

“Umino-san?” the boy asked to make sure he was referring to him properly. Iruka nodded and that seemed to be the end of the conversation as far as the boy was concerned because now he turned away from Iruka and headed to the kitchen, Iruka just watched him a bit as he stepped back into the apartments interior…unsure of what to do. By stretching and standing on his tiptoes Naruto could just barely reach the handle and open the fridge to peek inside and pull out a small pack of…, Iruka didn't get a chance to see as the boy quickly hid it with his body shoved the refrigerator door shut and raced back into the bedroom as if the dogs of hell were on his heels.

 

Okay, that was weird. Iruka walked up to the bedroom door and knocked on it lightly. “What are you doing in there?” He asked worriedly. Was this normal behavior for kids, or just demon kids? He certainly didn't remember acting quite like this, though yeah he'd been quite a brat in his own right.

 

“Eating.” Came the reply followed by a click and the tune of low music. So the kid had a radio in there…wait.

 

“Eating? Your supposed to do that at the table.” Iruka replied, he did not like having a conversation with the door but proper decorum demanded it, his social teachings just forbade him from simply entering the room.

 

“I have one in here.” He did? Iruka's eye twitched. Fine, if the kid wanted to play stubborn Iruka didn't care, but what kind of a bedroom had a table in it? Iruka had enough, the bedroom was no place to be eating, did the kid WANT to sleep with bugs? Besides what's the worst that could happen?

 

Shock it seemed, as Iruka opened the door quite ready to berate young Naruto on his choice of dining location and froze. Whatever `lived in' feeling the apartment was missing was obviously stockpiled in this room in the form of trash, dirty clothes, and overall built up of uncleanly-ness. Iruka was speechless and dumbfounded. It was literally impossible to see the floor through the build up of `stuff.' What could be seen was that the room had a simple futon mattress in one corner with a radio beside it. A small table sat in the middle of the floor which was meant more for decorative purposes then what Naruto was currently using it for; his meal it seemed was a box of ready made cereal with the small carton of expired milk, he was using a spoon…that had probably been in the room for a while. There was a closet in one wall and a positively ancient TV in one corner.

 

“You're not supposed to be in here.” Naruto's voice drew him back to reality. Iruka's eye seemed to have developed a nervous tick, which only got worse as the expired milk and dirty spoon registered. Why did he want this kid killed again, the child was well on its way of doing just that all on his own.

 

“I'm here…” Iruka ground out, “to take care of you, which will seem to include teaching you the appropriate places to eat, WHICH do NOT include your...this dump heap of a room." Naruto seemed to catch on pretty quickly that Iruka was quite upset because when the older man made to move towards the boy he jumped up and put the table between himself and Iruka.

 

“No, your supposed to stay in that room,” Naruto said angrily and pointed at the door behind Iruka, “and leave ME and MY room alone, like all the other people.” Iruka stopped and took a deep breath, which he regretted immediately because of the smell of the room, he was NOT getting in a shouting match with a whatever-year-old. Instead he aimed for the `reasoning' rout. “You can't eat hear, it's dirty.”

 

Naruto seemed to relax a bit at Iruka's calmer tone of voice, though he still made sure to keep the table between him and the ninja while looking around at his room. “It's not that bad, and don't insult my room.”

 

Delusional was added to the word list. With a sigh Iruka aimed for a different argument. “And that milk's expired.” Naruto just stared at him, expired was obviously not a word in his vocabulary. “It's gone bad, it'll make you sick.” Iruka tried to explain. Comprehension dawned on the child's face before being shrugged off. “It always dose that.” He stated matter of factly

 

Iruka rubbed his brow; missions were prone to giving their ninja's a headache, but never THIS early on in Iruka's experience. Alright, plan…C, D, whatever. “How about I just take you out for breakfast?” THAT got an immediate reaction.

 

“REALLY!” The chunin was suddenly tackled by 25lbs. of dirty blond four-year-old, nothing Iruka couldn't handle. The boy clung to the front of the chunin's pants and looked up at him as if he'd just been promised the world. Iruka wanted to get away real bad right about then, the boy was too close and taking him out to eat had NEVER been part of the plan…but then again he did need to get some food anyway. And the boy obviously needed a bath, so maybe a trip to the onsen…and new clothes definitely.

 

“Yeah, yeah.” He quickly said disengaging himself from the child and retreating out of the room. What was going on, barely a whole hour into the mission and he was taking the demon child out on a play date. Definitely not how he had planned his stay, but missions had to be done properly without regard to a ninja's personal opinion. If the now very excited Naruto even heard Iruka cursing him under his breath, as the chunin retrieved his wallet and put his sandals back on, he pretended not to hear. Naruto quickly pulled on his own sandals, with their peeling soles, and jumped excitedly outside the door. Iruka had to stop himself from commenting on the clothes, what the heck; he was just going to get new ones anyway since it didn't LOOK like the kid had anything clean to wear.

 

He felt a bit uncertain about leaving the door the way it was. Locking the front door of his own apartment was a habit, and it felt weird not being able to do the same here. Well, it wasn't anything a quick sealing jutsu couldn't fix. With the door `locked' the two were ready to set out.

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Published: October 12, 2006
Updated: June 29, 2007