A New Life

Chapter 8

Iruka smiled as he watched the children file out of his classroom. He imagined his child among their ranks, screaming happily as the day's lessons came to an end. What would their child look like? Would it be tall and lanky like Kakashi or short and somewhat stout like Iruka? Would its skin be pale or tan or a mix between the two? Black hair or white? He couldn't wait to find out.

Two knocks sounded on the open doorway, followed by a somewhat familiar voice. "Hey."

Iruka's smile faded slightly, just a fraction, as he turned to the door. "Oh hey Anko."

Mitarashi Anko stood in the doorway to Iruka's classroom. It wasn't that Iruka disliked her. He'd never really had a chance to get to know her. Much like Kakashi, she'd always seemed out of his league, like she was better than him. He doubted she saw it that way but sometimes it was hard to shake the inferiority of being a lowly chuunin surrounded by a bunch of amazingly talented people.

"Can I walk you home?"

He bit back the instant no and smiled. "Sure." He wondered if she knew or if Tsunade had ordered her to be his latest bodyguard. As if the two ANBU following him around weren't enough. He couldn't sense them, but he knew they were in sight. His days of privacy and alone-time were over. It was worth it.

Anko smiled and trailed him out of the Academy building. She swung her arms as she walked, her steps almost comically exaggerated. It reminded him a lot of Naruto.

"You're probably wondering why I'm here," she said once they were out on the streets. Her swinging arms stopped and she tucked her hands in the pockets of her giant overcoat.

Iruka raised any eyebrow. "Not really, no."

Anko glanced sideways at him. "Tsunade asked me to talk to you."

"Oh." Iruka straightened slightly. So she wasn't a bodyguard. Instead, Tsunade had sent her as... what? A comrade? Someone who'd gone through similar pain? Iruka doubted his experience lived up to the years Anko had spent with Orochimaru. "She did?"

Anko nodded. She stared straight ahead of her, her eyes following the crowd ahead of them on the street. "Yeah. She said... Well, she didn't give specifics, but she said Orochimaru..." Her voice caught on the name. It was barely perceptible, could have almost been mistaken for a pause for breath, but Iruka knew enough of her background to know otherwise. "He did something to you?"

Iruka hesitated before nodding. He hadn't told anyone yet, just Kakashi. He wasn't sure how many of the medical staff besides Tsunade knew. It wasn't that he wanted to keep it a secret, necessarily, though that was achingly tempting. But it would be hard to keep something like that a secret and he didn't want to, not really. He'd given Kakashi permission to tell anyone he felt needed to know but Iruka wasn't sure he was quite ready to tell anyone himself.

It still seemed so strange and wondrous and frightening.

"Well, Tsunade thought I might be able to... I don't know. Offer advice, maybe?" She smiled, but it was an off smile, part wry, part sad. "There's not many of us. The Survivors Club, I guess you could call it. You and me and Yamato and Sasuke. Only one in ten survive, they say."

Iruka shuddered. He hadn't really thought about it that way, but Anko was right. Most of Orochimaru's experiments died. He could have died.

"So. Welcome to the club." She clapped him on the back, hard enough that he almost fell over.

He caught himself and smiled at her. "Thanks." His days of being a lowly chuunin really were over if Anko was counting him among her ranks. He sighed. "I never really thought about that. I mean, I don't remember any of it. I never even thought about... about dying."