Iteration

‘Iteration’ is part of the space saga that began with ‘In the cold of space you find the heat of suns’ and continues in ‘Tales in Tarrasade’. There is also a one-shot ‘Silver Leaf Tales: Tying the knot’.

Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta. For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc.

It is wonderful to hear from those readers who review regularly, those who review occasionally and those who make contact for the first time. Particular thanks to richon, lonelylulaby, Gingitsune, Kat Saama, v, xxShadowheartxx, kanazerosukenaru, Midnight Essence, sadie237, Prism0467, cynaga, unneeded, disembodiedvoiceofthedying, Nemo-Hime and Tati who reviewed after I posted chapter 66.

It is wonderful to hear from those readers who review regularly, those who review occasionally and those who make contact for the first time.

Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.

This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga. However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes). Apologies to those hoping for Sasuke/Naruto or Naruto/Sasuke action in every chapter.

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Chapter sixty-seven: Differences

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Kakashi was uneasy. There was something on Iruka’s mind. Experience told him that when something had bothered Iruka for this long it was something larger rather than something smaller; it had been ten days, maybe twelve.

He began running through the possibilities.


They had not been able to find the Akatsuki. Even Klennethon Darrent had made no progress. Wherever the Akatsuki had gone, it was far from any shipping lanes and isolated from the data streams. The two bases had been utterly destroyed, presumably by Pein, leaving nothing but a large crater in each of the forests.

However, as much as this failure to find their enemy bothered Kakashi, it was highly unlikely to be what was worrying Iruka.


It could not be Shikamaru, who was positively happy. If anything, being abducted had improved him. He was more confident and mature. His relationship with Neji had survived intact, he was on much better terms with his mother and everyone, even Hikaru, had accepted his closeness to Haru.


It was not Haru; Haru was fine. So were the other children. Maybe they were a little jealous of the time their To-chan spent with the new babies, but it had not been too bad; Naruto easily had love enough for all of them. Kakashi smiled at the thought of his uber-warrior turning out to be such a loving and caring parent.


Kakashi switched his attention to Naruto himself and to Sasuke. It was unlikely to be either of them; they were coping with the triplets ridiculously well. Takara and Teruko were model babies. Tsuneo did have an impressive set of lungs, worse than Kazuki’s had been, but he only yelled when he wanted food, to be changed or a cuddle.

Perhaps triplets were that easy after a litter of nine.


Could it be Tayuya? Kakashi had seen no sign of it. She continued to shape up nicely. She and Inari were fucking but had not moved in together. The two of them looked after Konohamaru, stopped Sumaru being a complete loner and helped supervise Kamatari and Moegi.


It could be Moegi but Kakashi did not think so. He could not imagine Iruka being more than mildly pleased or slightly worried about Moegi.


Kakashi ran through all the other members of the crew. Nothing came to mind.


Was Iruka finding his responsibilities onerous? If it were that, Kakashi would have expected Iruka to moan. On the contrary, the crew was running incredibly smoothly; Iruka, Haku, Ibiki, Suzume and Kurenai made a highly efficient team.


Could it be his studies? Kakashi doubted it. Iruka had made steady progress over the last five standards. He had a degree in educational psychology, gained as an external student of the University of Palance. He and Biwako regularly reviewed the children’s learning. Occasionally Biwako, C-san, Haku and Iruka would have protracted and complex discussions that only Neji could follow.


Remembering what had happened last time, Kakashi was not going to ask anyone else’s advice. There was only one person who knew what was wrong and that was Iruka.


He engineered an occasion when Iruka would be relaxed. They took a day off, fucked most of the morning, took a picnic to Shikamaru’s woods and then made their way to the onsen.

When the perfect moment came, with them both up to their chins in steaming water, Kakashi seized it.

“Ir-chan, what is bugging you?” he asked.

And Iruka looked at him. It was the look that meant that he was going to say something that Kakashi did not like. Worse, it was the look that meant Iruka knew Kakashi was not going to like it, but was going to say it anyway.

“Kashi...” he began.

Kakashi really wished he had not asked. Perhaps it was a baby. He could tolerate a baby. He had known for a long time that there would be a baby one day. He braced himself. How bad could it be?

“Kashi, someone has to take responsibility for raising the original Ranmaru,” Iruka said.

Kakashi shut his eye and took a deep breath. It was much worse than a baby. It would be like Tayuya only more difficult and even longer term. The child was feral, an empath and would be a living, breathing reminder of someone they had lost.

He should have known.

“Kashi?” Iruka queried.

Kakashi opened his eye. “What if I say no?” he asked.

“I would beg you not to,” Iruka replied.

Kakashi shut his eye again. He had not missed the stubborn expression on Iruka’s face. What should he do? His mind rushed from one train of thought to another; there had to be a way out.

The child was in stasis; that gave him some room for manoeuvre. He opened his eye.

“I would like time to think about it,” he said. “Please,” he added.

Iruka’s forehead puckered in a small frown. “Of course,” he replied.

---

Iruka had not thought much about the child until he entered the galley one morning to find Konohamaru already sitting at the table. Kamatari had given Iruka a look that said, “He was there when I got here.”

Next morning Iruka was in the galley at ship’s dawn. As he had suspected, Konohamaru was already there. Iruka made them both tea.

“Kono-kun?” he asked gently.

Konohamaru swirled his tea in his cup. “It was the right thing to do,” he said quietly. “Shika-san did exactly the right thing.”

Iruka was lost. “What did Shika-kun do that was right?” he asked.

Konohamaru turned sleep-deprived eyes to him. “Bringing back the feral child. It is what Ranmaru would have wanted. He would not have trusted him to anyone other than us.”

Iruka agreed that Shikamaru should have brought the child back to Uchiha. He was less sure about Sasuke’s decision to tell Konohamaru.

“Grandma Biwako has offered to raise him,” Konohamaru informed him. “She says that she would buy a house on the beach where we used to go for vacations.”

That seemed an excellent solution to Iruka. They would miss Biwako-san but they would manage. He felt much more confident about overseeing the children’s education than he had five standards’ ago.

“I don’t want that,” Konohamaru continued.

“You don’t?” Iruka queried.

“No,” Konohamaru emphasised. “I have thought about it a lot. It isn’t fair on Grandma Biwako because she likes being a member of the crew. It wouldn’t be fair on the child because he needs a family, not just one person who probably won’t be around once he’s grown up. Grandma Biwako is a lot older than she looks.”

He looked at Iruka and Iruka reeled at the depth of his pain.

“It isn’t what I need,” he continued. “I need to see him grow up here because then I will absolutely know that he isn’t my Ranmaru, no matter what he looks like. Imagine meeting Keizo for the first time when he is fourteen. You would think of him as Naruto without whiskers. Instead he is Keizo, because we have watched him grow up as Keizo. I need to watch this child grow up.”

Iruka conceded that Konohamaru had a valid argument. He rested a hand on his arm. “There isn’t any rush, Kono-kun. How long has he been in stasis? Six standards?”

“Eighteen standards,” Konohamaru told him. He sipped his tea. “Maybe you are right, Iruka-sensei. If we wait another decade, perhaps I could raise him.”

This was, Iruka knew but did not say, a terrible idea. Konohamaru needed to move on, not spend the next decade trying to make himself into a suitable parent for his dead lover’s twin.


After that Iruka had not been able to get the child in the pod out of his head.


The idea grew. It felt right. This was what Iruka did. He took vulnerable or damaged youngsters and helped them become the adults they had the potential to be; Shikamaru, Sasuke, Naruto, Tayuya and even Sumaru. This child was younger, feral and an empath. It would be much more of a challenge.

Kakashi would not want him to take it on. They had only just returned to their usual life after Shikamaru’s abduction. He knew that Kakashi loved their life as it was; surrounded by family but still a couple with time for each other.

But the child was calling to him. So, when they were in the onsen and Kakashi presented him with the opportunity to mention it, Iruka took it.

Kakashi’s reaction had been less bad than he had feared.

---

Asuma knew something major was wrong when Kakashi turned up in their apartment with a bottle of whisky. He shepherded him into the galley and found two cups.

Kurenai gave him the look that warned him that drunkenness in front of the children was not acceptable but shut the door and left them to it.

He listened to Kakashi’s latest problem with diminishing sympathy.

“It’s your own fault, Ka-chan,” he retorted when Kakashi had finished.

Kakashi scowled at him.

“No, it is,” Asuma insisted. “You never think ahead as far as Iruka is concerned. You know he needs to have someone to look after. You could have pressed to have more trainees. You could have insisted that you and he have a baby.”

“More trainees would have been good,” Kakashi acknowledged mournfully.

“Too late for that now,” Asuma reminded him. “He’s focused on this child. The chances of it not happening are nigh on zero.” He considered. It might be better if Iruka did not rush into such a difficult endeavour. “I might be able to buy you a few divs.”

Kakashi perked up. “Really?”

“Now that Akemi is twelve...” he began.

“Akemi is twelve?” Kakashi queried, amazed. “Time really does fly.”

Azuma wondered how much Kakashi had drunk before turning up at his door. “Ka-chan, you were at his birthday party.”

“I was? Yes, I was. Am I drunk, Asu-chan?”

“I think so. Now that Akemi is twelve, Kurenai and I are going to ask Sasuke to allow him to be a part time trainee. A bit like Sumaru was when he was twelve. That way, when he is fourteen, he will be better placed to decide if he wants to stay here or join another crew.”

“Akemi-chan wants to leave?” Kakashi asked.

“Akemi may want to leave, in two standards’ time, when he is fourteen,” Asuma clarified. He claimed the bottle before Kakashi could close his hand around it and pour himself another drink. “You are going home, Ka-chan.”

“Home to Ir-chan?” Kakashi suggested.

“Yes, home to Ir-chan,” Asuma told him.

---

Iruka did not even bother pretending to be cross. Instead he put Kakashi to bed and joined Asuma in the otherwise empty galley.

“He told you,” Iruka guessed, putting on the kettle.

“Yes,” Asuma confirmed.

“And he hates the idea,” Iruka suggested, sinking into a chair.

“Of course he does,” Asuma agreed. “He’s Kakashi. He hates sharing you and he hates you being upset. Both those things will happen for standards if you take on a difficult orphan. It doesn’t mean he won’t come around.”

Iruka was not so sure. “Maybe, this time, it’ll be too much and he will find someone else,” he confessed.

Asuma chuckled. Then he laughed. Then he roared with laughter. It was so loud that various people put their heads around the galley doorways and smiled.

Iruka flushed and went to make the tea. By the time he brought the tray to the table, Asuma had stopped laughing and was wiping away tears.

“He might,” Iruka complained.

“Iruka-san, as much as you have spoiled him, Kakashi isn’t delusional,” Asuma assured him. “He knows you are the best thing that ever happened to him. Give him time. Perhaps, once he becomes accustomed to the idea, the two of you could plan it out carefully.”

“Planning is good,” Iruka admitted.

“Meanwhile, let’s talk about Akemi,” Asuma suggested. “Has Kurenai mentioned our idea about him being a part-time trainee?”

Kurenai had. They drank tea and discussed Akemi’s strengths and weaknesses; the child in the pod could wait a little longer.

---

Kiba’s heart fell when Naruto arrived at the playroom with the babies. The pattern was always the same. Naruto would sit on a chair with one hand clutching the babies’ basket beside him. The children would cluster around him, jostling the babies as they unconsciously competed for their To-chan’s attention. Naruto would become more and more uncomfortable, which was picked up first by the kits and Ryuu and then by Hikaru, Haru and Hoshi.

It was not meant to be like this; Kiba’s eyes went to the new, unused doorway and he sighed.

After the babies’ birth Naruto had decided they needed a place where he could be with both the babies and the children during the day. He had found a suitable space next to the playroom and installed a door. He had started to build a den; like the babies’ nursery but bigger.

Kiba had objected. Raising canine-human hybrids was all about making sure they behaved like humans and not foxes, dogs or wolves. The kits and Ryuu would be using the room, so a den was unsuitable.

Sasuke-sama had brokered a compromise. A huge bed, big enough for Naruto, the babies and all the children, had been installed in the tiny room. He called it a snug rather than a den. Kiba had been pleased. Humans had beds. Foxes and wolves had dens.

Only Naruto would not use the room. Instead he sat in a chair and hovered protectively over the basket of babies.

Kiba had belatedly realised that Naruto could only relax if the babies were in a den.


He had asked Naruto to convert the snug to a den but Naruto had refused. He had twisted Kiba’s words and thrown them back at him. A den was unsuitable. Only a fox would want a den. They did not want to encourage the kits’ foxiness, nor Ryuu’s wolfishness.

Kiba sighed again. He had hurt Naruto and created an uncomfortable situation that suited neither the children nor their To-chan.

“Sometime we do the wrong things with the right motives,” Biwako-san said from her position beside him. She was there to run a session with the children once Naruto and the babies left.

“I cannot make it right,” Kiba admitted. “Naruto won’t change it into a den because of what I said.”

“What makes a den a den?” Biwako-san asked.


It was a very good question. Kiba thought about it. He checked the lines of sight in the nursery and unearthed the analyser they had used when they had created the litter’s pheromone cocktail. Then he went and sat in the snug.

The ceiling was too high, the walls were too far away, there were far too many hard surfaces and it smelt terrible.

He talked to Choza. Choza talked to Haku. Haku and Neji made a canopy, a set of drapes and a cover for the bed, using the hangings in the nursery as a guide.

Shikamaru helped him create a cocktail of pheromones and other scents using Rin’s synthesiser.

He still had to get Naruto over the threshold. There was only one person who could manage that. He showed Sasuke-sama the modified snug and asked for his assistance.

Sasuke-sama inspected the snug and then smiled at him; Kiba had wanted to wag the tail he did not have.

---

Naruto had not wanted to go into the snug. He hated it. It was nothing like a den. He was going to refuse until Sasuke opened the door and he smelled it.

Kiba had made the bed feel like a den. Suddenly the compromise worked.


Next day he tried it out. He made a hollow for the babies’ basket and curled himself around them. The children’s training session with Kakashi would finish soon. Once they had showered they had time set aside for play but maybe Haru, Yuki and some of the others would join him for a rest.

Ryuu was first. Naruto heard him coming before he poked his head through the drapes. He made a small, pleased bark, climbed up and curled up in the crook of Naruto’s knees.

Soon all ten had joined him, even Hikaru. Naruto gave a small, contented purr and stroked the heads that were within easy reach.


He may have napped but it was not for long because the children were still with him. Someone was outside with Kiba. He listened more closely; it was Iruka, he could tell by the breathing.

“He’s in the snug,” Kiba was saying. “With the babies and the children.”

“I should have guessed,” replied Iruka. “Look at all the shoes lined up. I am so glad that it worked out.”

“Naruto-san is a wonderful parent,” Kiba replied. “Next time I will think twice before going against his instincts. Excuse me, Iruka-san, but I must ring the bell to warn them that the next session is about to begin. Biwako-san is coming and they are going to make up stories and think of ways of making records of them.”

There was a soft tinkling; they had spent considerable time finding a sound that was loud enough for the purebreds but not offensive to hybrid ears. The children shifted about and the first ones crawled out. Naruto checked the others and woke Haru with a small shake.


Once they had gone he checked the babies. They were fine but Tsu-chan was making the little noises he did before he woke up for a feed. Naruto found one of the milk bags and slipped it into the portable warmer.

“May I come in, Naru-kun?” Iruka asked from the doorway.

“You are welcome, Iruka-sensei, or I could come out,” Naruto offered.

“No need,” replied Iruka, entering. He slid through the drapes and onto the bed. “This is very cosy,” he observed. He peered into the basket. “How are they doing?”

“Tsu-chan is about to yell to be fed,” Naruto told him. “I am seeing if I can cut out the yelling part so he does not wake the Ta-chan and Te-chan.” At that moment the blue eyes opened. Naruto plucked him from the basket and touched the teat to his cheek. Tsuneo immediately fastened on.

“A success, Naru-kun,” Iruka observed. “May we talk while he is feeding?”


Naruto listened. So Iruka-sensei was thinking about raising the child Shi-chan had brought home. He wondered what Kakashi-sensei thought but decided not to ask. They talked about what a feral child might need.

“Perhaps you should talk to other feral children, Iruka-sensei,” he suggested.

Iruka smiled at him. “Are you suggesting a visit to Haven, Naru-kun?”

Naruto smiled in return. “It would be good to check on Five, Chamu and the others, as well as seeing how Sickler and Ebisu-san are doing. Tonton-san and Sickler-kun may also be able to help you prepare for the child.”

“I will ask Sasu-kun if a visit can be scheduled,” Iruka agreed.

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