Questionable Loyalty

A/N: Yes, the Lily of the Valley is indeed a very poisonous flower. You need to wash your hands after touching one before you do anything else.



CHAPTER 19





It was an around midday when Kakashi walked in the Academy and patiently waited seated on one of the benches in the yard for the bell to call for lunch recess. When the children poured out of the building, squealing and laughing and running, he walked in the building and headed for the room where he knew Iruka taught his classes. He reached the door and knocked on it as politely as he could.



“Come in!” the Chuunin’s familiar voice called from inside.



Kakashi opened the door and walked in. Iruka looked up from his desk, obviously in the process of tiding up his work place and preparing to go out to have a lunch himself.



“Do you have a few minutes, Sensei?” Kakashi asked.



Though the look on the tanned face turned suspicious, Iruka nodded.



“What can I do you for you, Kakashi-san?” he asked carefully.



Kakashi looked down at his hands for a moment before answering.



“The Hokage-sama wishes me to take on a new Genin team.” He said, unwilling to beat around the bush. He didn’t miss the way the Chuunin froze for a moment before making a visible effort to relax.



“A new Genin team.” He said flatly. “I see. Well, I guess I should congratula…”



“I haven’t accepted the offer yet.” He told you.



“I didn’t realize that it mattered whether you accepted it or not. The Hokage doesn’t offer, she orders.”



“I am a Jounin, Iruka-sensei. Unless it concerns the direct safety of the Village or we have an urgent need of income, I can actually refuse missions occasionally.”



Iruka narrowed his eyes at him.



“So what can an insignificant Chuunin like me help you with?” he asked sharply.



Kakashi lifted his hands placatingly.



“Peace. I did not come to pick a fight. I apologize if I sounded haughty.”



Iruka lifted his eyebrows at the apology, but didn’t make a stinging comment.



“Very well.” He said. “Why did you come here then?”



“Because I need your help. I need… I need to stay with you during your classes for a few days.”



Iruka was looking at him as if he had grown a second head. A second head with an anteater’s muzzle sprouting through his mask.



“Why?” he finally asked, completely dumbfounded.



“Let’s face it, Iruka-sensei. I failed completely with my last Genin team. I did not pay enough attention to Sakura, I had no idea how to connect to Naruto. And Sasuke…” he trailed off here, the hurt of the memory very real and unfeigned. “They were children and I treated them like adults, I expected them to make adult decisions and when that didn’t happen everything went down the drain…”



Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder, grabbing it in gentle support.



“I had no idea that you carried so much guilt over this, Kakashi-san.” Iruka said gently.



Kakashi looked up at the concerned face.



“I am only human, Iruka-sensei. Being a Jounin doesn’t exclude that.” He continued: “I just wanted to observe you for a few days. How you interact with your students. I know that being able to communicate with people of that age is more of a talent rather than a learnt skill, but I might be able to pick up a few pointers.” He looked up to Iruka and said earnestly “I don’t want to fail again. I don’t want to fail THEM.”



Iruka had always had a weakness for strays and at the moment Kakashi looked like a kicked puppy. He nodded.



“Okay. You can stay.” He lifted his hand before Kakashi could speak “But you will sit at the back and you won’t disrupt my classes.”



The Jounin nodded eagerly:



“It’d be as if I am not here at all, I promise.”



After lunch recess the students began to file back in the classroom, all of them throwing curious looks at the Jounin sitting quietly at back in one of the corner desks, almost folded in four because the seat was designed for much smaller body. The presence of a famous Jounin in the classroom created a lot of excitement and curiosity and more than a little awe. Even as the students took their seats they kept turning their little heads to stare at him with wide, innocent eyes. Kakashi felt distinctly uncomfortable, and it wasn’t because of the small desk.



Iruka entered last and waited a few moments for the children to quiet down then he began to speak.



“Class, today we have a visitor, as everyone have already noticed. I am quite sure that almost all of you know who he is, but I will introduce him to you anyway. This is Hatake Kakashi, a high-ranking Jounin of our beloved village.”



“Hello, Kakashi-san.” said an uneven but loud chorus of high-pitched voices.



Kakashi waved absently.



“Kakashi-san will be staying with us during our classes for a few days. He’s here to observe us for some personal reasons of his. Don’t be bothered by his presence and do try to pay attention to the lesson rather than stare at him.” He pointed to a small dark-haired boy who still had his head turned to look at Kakashi “That means you too, Goro.” The boy flushed and quickly looked back to Iruka.



“Okay, now that we’re done with this, let us continue with our lessons. Where were we? Ah, yes, different type of herbal poisons. Open on page 67 of your textbooks and look at the picture there. This is a picture of Lily of the Valley, one of the most poisonous plants known to man…”



Kakashi watched Iruka and the students as the Chuunin taught the class. He watched his mannerisms, the way he spoke to the children, the expression on his face and the tone of his voice. The younger man was gentle and patient, yet still capable of instilling discipline in the most unruly of students. He explained things over and over to those who didn’t understand, making sure they didn’t lag behind the others. Mostly having communicated with people who were geniuses or close to it all his life, Kakashi wasn’t sure he’d have the patience to do the same. But then again, it was what had caused his failure with Team 7, wasn’t it?



The truth was that he barely remembered his own time in the Academy, having been only 4-5 years old, still learning things on an instinctual level. Back then, and in the many years afterwards, he had never actually analyzed the mood of that classroom, of the things studied there by children who still played with dolls and toy cars. Then again, those were quickly exchanged for kunai and shuriken and exploding tags. To this moment it had never occurred to him that they actually taught little, innocent children how to hurt and maim and kill other people. Iruka was doing it as if he taught a literature class, still as kind and patient as ever. And Kakashi could see that the little heads remembered what they were taught, filed the information away in their little developing brains but did not truly understand its meaning. They did not yet know how blood and open guts stank, how severed limbs and burned bodies looked like, they didn’t know the pain of having a kunai stuck anywhere in their bodies and they didn’t know the screams and gurgles of the dying. They were still innocent but with each word Iruka said, each time he pointed to a major artery on the picture of the human body he had hung on the wall, each time he commended a student for a properly done seal, that innocence was twisted and corrupted into something monstrous. When the time of their first real mission came the innocence would be completely stripped away from them, leaving behind only a cold, hard tool with a sharp edge, ready for Konoha’s fist to plunge it into the heart of its enemies.



Kakashi felt sick. The walls around him seemed to begin to close in on him, the air he breathed too thin and foul-smelling, his ears began to ring. For the first time since he agreed to join Pein’s cause he actually understood why the red-head was so desperate to implement his plan and stop this cycle of violence. Back then, he had understood it intellectually, but now, looking at how a kind, gentle Chuunin shaped these innocents into tools, into weapons, Kakashi understood it with his heart.