Irresponsible Prank

“-You think you'd get through everything talking it out? Fine! Try it! And think about what you've done!”

Iruka stared at the spot where a log poofed into existence before belatedly yelling out, “You're supposed to be the adult around here!”

Little messy faces turned to him from outside the barrier tags, making him feel like a spider caught in a jar.

“Shouldn't have made such a mess, 'Ruka,” Kotetsu, the oldest after Mizuki, finally said something now that the show was over.

“I? Me?” Iruka's voice was starting to go hoarse from all the shouting. “It's not MY fault!”

“Can't talk your way out of this one,” the jerk taunted as he left the cafeteria, leaving a mashed-potato hand print on the door.

The rest of the kids followed him out with varying degrees of food splatter, ignoring Iruka as he pounded on the barrier in frustration. “Wait! Guys! Seriously?! No one can say anything at all!?”

His temper's fuse had been short ever since the... night, and the outrage at being falsely accused had lit him up to spectacular raving madness.

Such could not be said the same for the rest of the orphanage kids, whose healthy self-preservation instincts kept them from arguing with their overworked, irritable chunin babysitter.

This left the lone dissenter to sit in the time-out barrier tags all alone in the middle of upended tables and spilled food and drink that caked all surfaces like... like...

“An irresponsible prank that I DO know better than to start,” Iruka whispered, temper fading into soft malice. Whether he'd get Mizuki back or not really depended on a number of things; how much responsibility should be leveled towards one fifteen-year old vs four dozen twelve-and-younger rugrats; how much group-mentality and immaturity impacted their tiny, undeveloped brains; and could Iruka really have done more to stop it?

“I KNOW it's wasteful. I KNOW how much it costs.” Iruka beat the barrier again half-halfheartedly. “I fill out the dang order forms so I know EXACTLY how much we food we get and EXACTLY how much we have left.”

Which was dwindling faster than they were receiving. Not including this cluster-bomb-tag of a food fight. And their cellar was low from the start because there was never that many orphans before... before.

Before.

Iruka curled up into a ball in the middle of the barrier and hid his face. He wouldn't be here, this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for....

With the least soiled spot on his sleeve, he wiped his face because there was food on it. No other reason. Not that there was anyone to call him on it – Iruka could hear the water chugging through the old, steady pipes as everyone washed off outside with the garden hose.

He'd be out there too, if only Mizuki knew what chunin meant besides having access to printed tags and foisting off his work onto others.

The sun was setting. The cafeteria stayed dirty because in the middle of their yelling match, Mizuki demanded to have Iruka clean it all up alone and threats from Mizuki had to be taken seriously. The older kids were scavenging the pantry for stuff to eat while the younger ones were whining and yawning and looking over their shoulders for the chunin.

Iruka was rather surprised when Izumo tiptoed within an stone's throw. Izumo would make a good ninja, dark everything compacted into a worn gray hoodie that nearly reached his knees. Iruka pushed down the snide comments and went for a neutral observation. “Thought you were a neat freak.”

“I definitely am.” Izumo shrugged, looking anywhere but at Iruka.

Did the other older kid feel guilty because his best friend Kotetsu threw Iruka under the kunai? Was he regretting not speaking up when Mizuki was dealing out blame?

“You know,” Izumo finger-combed his wet bangs, now nearly black instead of dark brown, hiding his face. “Mizuki's only a couple years older than us.”

“He's FOUR years older than me,” Iruka could feel the simmering anger threaten to heat back up. “He's had REAL training from a REAL sensei on a REAL three-man team.”

Izumo was turned nearly completely around and half mumbling through his neck-to-mouth mask, which he nervously toyed with. He never liked confrontation, and would leave conversation mainly to Kotestu. But Iruka still heard, “You gotta give Mizuki more of a break.”

On his feet in an instant, Iruka's hoarseness still conveyed his desire to yell. “That fish turd doesn't give anyone a break! Lording around his status like he's the Kage of the orphanage and making sure we know it all day, every day! But he doesn't know what he's doing!”

The other boy waited until Iruka was breathless from ranting before mumbling, “Mizuki was field-promoted. He really doesn't know what he's doing.”

Kotetsu called from outside and Izumo scurried away, grateful for the escape.

Iruka's temper was... still not fizzling out. Mizuki still hadn't come back to release Iruka from the barrier. It was nighttime, everyone else had gotten dinner (however stingy) and were going to bed (littlest rugrats fell asleep in the hallways; Iruka pounded cutlery and broken plates together until the older kids took care of them to shut him up). He stewed over the fact mean Mizuki was the assigned Chunin looking after the orphanage, and the jerk couldn't just leave when he didn't like it.

Iruka's stomach growled, but he refused to lick anything stuck to his clothes or in his cube of space. Mom and dad raised him better than a rugrat. (They raised him better than a tantrum-throwing brat too... dang it).

Trapped all night inside a barrier tag left him nothing to do but mull over every action and reaction in increasing self-awareness.

Maybe Mizuki did deserve more slack. He was new at being an adult, just as Iruka and everyone were new at being... alone together. It was a new world for everyone. No one knew what they were doing. (No one... The adults didn't know what they were doing. There wasn't enough adults to go around, so they assigned the next oldest breathing person to be an adult.)

And maybe Iruka could have shown off the shiny beetle shells later, not right before everyone was about to eat. Maybe not allowed the more rambunctious ones to hold them, or start throwing them across tables... Or laugh when said shells fell into food. Or give as good as he got when Kotetsu made it personal.

Iruka buried his face away and wished morning to rise and the barrier to fall.

***

Mizuki's loud taunts and boasts of 'easy kills' among the rugrats made him less endearing every visit, and his latest unapproved leave of absence after the food fight solidified him as Worst Ninja Ever. It was a little bit worrying he hadn't returned since he stormed off, but the jerk wasn't missed.

The pantry and cellar were museums of crumbs and empty packaging by mid morning, because little rugrats couldn't spell 'ration' much less know how. Urushi, nine-year-old mother-hen with three orphanage buttons on his cap to mark him In Charge, tried to create some order among the hungry chaos, but controlling forty-odd rugrats was beyond him.

Like usual, more foodstuff had arrived via jutsu, but the barrier seals on the packages meant for safe transportation also kept the food safe from hungry rugrats.

None of the other kids had the chakra skill to pull up a tag placement or even the simplest puff of chakra to destroy one. Everyone at the orphanage was under new school teachings – as in, not much training at all, although more from a lack of adult problem now than the recently rising 'let children be children' philosophy.

It was a philosophy that divided his parents, and while Iruka's dad had snuck in some training, Iruka didn't know how to break a barrier tag from the inside, much less how to teach others chakra training to cut it from the outside. This meant both the food box and his own barrier tag cage were unbroken.

And besides, Iruka really didn't want anyone near his barrier tag cage at the moment.

“You're not a chunin, Iruka! Or any of you! You can't just order people around!”yelled Dokan, a last member of an Akimichi-wannabe clan. He was only ten, but a big ten year old.

“No entry,” Kotetsu repeated, standing firmly before the cafeteria door.

Dokan's meaty hand slicked back the bangs of his mullet, hair gel making it stand up. The tips just barely stood taller than Kotetsu's puffy black mess of hair. Their heights were too similar for Dokan to look down upon Kotetsu, but Dokan tried to make his larger girth more imposing.

Izumo stood guard at the other cafeteria door leading outside, keeping out Dokan's lackeys who he sent to try to go around.

Kotetsu and Izumo kept the cafeteria off limits on the excuse that Iruka alone was supposed to clean it, because they were friends and that meant even though Iruka embarrassed himself in the barrier tags, they'd still cover for him.

Dokan turned into a bully when things didn't go his way, but he was more bluster than brawn. Still, being told not to do something when there was nothing else to do made it real enticing for mutiny.

“Have 'em all play ninja,” Iruka stated the obvious to Izumo, and with a little brainstorming, had a plan marked up.

Teams of three were sent out along the edge of the orphanage property and were to wave down any passerby. (No orphanage staff meant more barrier tags to keep the kids contained, so all they could do was pound on the orphanage barrier meant to protect them.) Two messenger teams would work clockwise around the barrier perpendicular to each other. They'd receive reports from the edge teams and act as go-betweens with central command – Iruka, Kotetsu, and Izumo.

Iruka sweetened the game with a reward: a real ninja kunai for each on the team who brought help. It was his own personal weaponry he had since forever (admittedly dull, meant for toddler hands) and he only had a dozen of them. But just the symbol of owning one was an important marker of being a ninja they all wanted to be.

Except for Urushi, who never liked playing ninja, so he just stayed in the nursery (luckily there was lots of back-stock of bottle packets for the littlest orphans. Unluckily, they were being eyed by hungry rugrats more and more).

***

Sundown and there was still no sign of Mizuki or anyone else. Iruka's barrier still stood firm.

The second night was one of stomach growls and louder complaints. Iruka directed everyone to drink lots of water and allowed admittance to the cafeteria again – the ants and other bugs among the food fight aftermath not withstanding the hungry hoard scavenging anything eatable.

Everyone drank their fill of water except Iruka, who was tired of banging against his barrier, tired of gnawing on his food-stained clothes, tired of smelling awful and feeling awful and where in the seven hells was Mizuki?

Stuck alone in a barrier tag box for – was the sun rising yet? Yep – day two, Iruka vowed to himself this would never happen again. Even if he had to study the barrier tags themselves and become a master of those squiggly lines, he'd never be trapped in one again.

His mouth was parched, his stomach ached, his head ached more, and he was too tired to sleep. His cube of space let him stand up and lay down, but there wasn't any room for anything else. Shoving the licked-clean broken plates and cutlery to a corner where he was putting all his messes, there wasn't anything Iruka could do now but trace the lines on one of the barrier tags for the infinite time.

Time didn't matter anymore. Except of course it did later.

“Hey Iruka?” Urushi's voice was as defeated as Iruka felt. The three-button hat was clenched tight in the tiny kid's hands, and Urushi's dark eyes were rugged from crying. “I couldn't stop them. They wouldn't listen, they just don't care about anyone but themselves-!” His hat became scrunched up. “You need to tell them to stop!”

“They're hungry rugrats, Urushi,” Iruka croaked. “They're not going to listen to me.”

“But now-” Urushi pushed away hard against more tears. “But now the babies aren't going to have-!”

Iruka grimaced. Even if Iruka did find the energy to yell at the rugrats, he was stuck in his time out barrier on the first floor while the nursery was on the second. His voice wouldn't reach.

The food problem became a food emergency.

The solution being the food packages sent in via jutsu.

Little rugrats dragged those over to Iruka's barrier cage and begged him to open them, like it wasn't what he desperately wanted to do.

Even the older kids pestered him for chakra lessons, as if they could learn how to control chakra in a few hours that took him weeks with his dad lighting up his chakra pathways.

Iruka just wanted to curl up and cover his head with his arms and pretend he was home. His parents would come in and ask what was wrong and be able to fix everything and his grandparents would visit to dote and spoil him and there would be another big dinner in celebration the war was over and mom wouldn't leave any time soon and he'd sleep in their bed tonight, even though Iruka proclaimed he was too old just recently, just before.... Before.

Now Iruka couldn't rely on his family, or his neighbors, or his family's friends. All around him were children because there wasn't enough adults to go around. The highest level of ninja should be in charge but there were no ninja here now. Only Iruka had even a remote idea of how to be one.

Only Iruka knew.

So Iruka had to be the ninja.

Ninja getting some adult's attention. Ninja getting the rugrats food. Ninja getting himself out of this barrier.

Iruka was a spider caught in a jar.

He was only really good at talking.

“Let's talk this out.”

“Your rasp is so steep it's almost like an accent,” Kotetsu noted, increasing his own Grass Country burr.

Iruka tried to smile but it may have only been a grimace. “We need to go over barrier tags. Again. You can break them by-”

“Ripping them apart with chakra!” Dokan snarled, futilely scratching at one of the food box tags for the hundredth time.

“Capture barrier tags collapse if the structure supporting them is destroyed.” Kotetsu had brought in a large variety of tools and liquids. Earlier experimentation revealed the wooden floor to be fireproof and resisting sharp attacks via old seals.

“Or by disabling the caster, thus removing the power source.” Izumo held a wooden doll with Mizuki's name on it and a nail smashed into its back. Of course it didn't do anything, no one having the chakra much less the correct jutstu necessary, but several other rugrats vented their frustrations on the little doll too.

“And Mizuki's not even here to keep the barrier up.” Urushi, despite his non-ninja attitude, was pulled into the problem solving because his three buttoned hat was back on his head.

Answers Iruka had to figure out fast. “Mizuki's not here now, which means... the tags are only working with the amount of chakra he first put into them.” Making longer sentences was as hard as being loud enough for everyone to hear. “So while a chunnin-cast barrier would naturally come down... in a day or two-”

“It's been two days,” Dokan growled.

“And you've been pounding on it all throughout day one,” Kotetsu added. “They still feel strong.”

“It may be-” Iruka struggled to remember conversations he overheard his parents talking to their friends about. “Higher quality printed tags- the ones that turned the war for us. Mizuki may be freshly chunin, but his tags compensate for his lack of... of finesse.”

“Konaha's superior tags made even Mizuki into a qualified ninja,” Izumo stabbed the doll with another nail. (Iruka wondered where he found loose nails in a toddler-proof building)

“Yes, they made the barrier better... but the tags can't create chakra, only use it.”

“It's still only a limited supply.” Urushi understood ninja concepts so well Iruka thought he should become a ninja despite his abhorrence. “You're saying it's going to run out.”

“And we make it... run out faster...”

Dokan punched the barrier. “By pounding the crap out of it?”

Kotetsu grinned. “We pound the crap out of it. Sorry Iruka, you look like such crap right now.”

“I do feel crappy.”

In excitement, Izumo quit fumbling with his hoodie's strings. “With the added stress to the barrier tags, and how long its already been active, it should fall relatively quickly!”

“I'll grab you a cup of water.” Urushi escaped the violence that pulled the rest of the orphans together.

Iruka's time out barrier wasn't that big, but the orphans weren't that big either. More than two dozen surrounded and attacked, and while it wasn't very coordinated, the teamwork payed off.

The barrier flickered under the assault and finally, fell.

Iruka only made one frail whoop of triumph before sharp corners of food boxes were rammed into him. “Oy! I can only- one at a time! Everyone-”

His throat hurt and he couldn't yell like usual.

Dokan hauled him up like a stuffed animal and bellowed, “LINE UP!”

Surprised and grateful, Iruka sipped at the water Urushi handed to him while everyone scuttled into a semi-straight line.

Iruka was less surprised when Dokan's lackeys were first in line. Even less surprised when the first foodbox shoved into Iruka's hands was Dokan's.

Breaking a tag seal was practically the first thing a ninja learned when manipulating chakra. It barely took any effort, just intent and a rise in chakra.

It took such simplicity that even exhausted Iruka could swipe through tags of a delivery's worth of food.

Which led to another problem: there wasn't enough food being delivered for four dozen mouths. Iruka didn't think to - much less have the energy to - insist on rationing, so it wasn't done.

“I didn't get any,” the younger rugrats pleaded, tugging at Iruka's clothes.

“There isn't enough for all the babies,” Urushi added, as if Iruka held all the answers.

All he had was water.

“Do this for now,” Iruka instructed Urushi. He soaked some washcloths and let the babies nom on them. “Just make sure they don't choke.”

He had the younger rugrats pull wild mint from outside and drop it in their water cups, pretending it was tea. They were not satisfied. Iruka assured them he was going to get help.

Dokan and his flunkies went out to pound on the barrier that surrounded the orphanage.

Iruka didn't have the strength or heart to tell them that was a more professionally made barrier meant to withstand enemy attack, powered by ambient chakra and much stronger seals.

“We need to flag someone down,” Kotetsu said, like that wasn't what they tried to do all yesterday.

“Mizuki was the assigned chunin for the orphanage.” Iruka sipped at more water. “We're outside the village. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“There's still patrols in case the war starts up again.”

Iruka gave Izumo a surprised look. It wasn't common knowledge that the armistice agreement between Konaha and Iwagakure was tenuous, only happening because the Fourth Hokage made a once-in-a-decade show of power. (And now the Fourth Hokage's gone...) Izumo's parents must been as high up as Iruka's, at least.

“The war has ended,” Iruka repeated the propaganda, trying to convey through eye-contact the seriousness of it.

Kotetsu rolled his eyes. “You're as subtle as a megaphone, Iruka.”

“What I'm saying is,” Izumo tugged down his hoodie over his face, muffling his next words. “...-patrols still-...!”

“We need to flag someone down,” Kotetsu repeated.

“You don't think Mizuki's returning?” At their pointed silence, Iruka shrugged. “Yeah, me neither. We'll need to make a signal. A signal big enough it can't be missed.”

“It's nearly dark out again. It's going to be hard to see.”

“We burn the place down!”

Muffled and unmuffled laughter met Iruka's idea.

“We tried burning it to free you, remember?” Kotetsu gestured toward the half full gasoline can.

“Okay, the house won't burn. But what about its contents?” All the furniture was wooden, the building having been constructed during the second war period as an urgent waylay medical center. Medical supplies were aplenty, and those things burned... probably.

“So we burn our furniture and then what?”

“Outside, obviously. We'll get everyone to lay around too, and scatter my kunai to look like a battleground. Do we have any more ketchup?”

A muffled voice denied it. “Eaten.”

“Uh... paint? No? All we have is water... Ok. Make clay mud and splash it over everyone. In the dark it'll be hard to tell what it is anyway.”

Dokan and his lackeys came in as night fell, and helped rustle up everyone and everything according to plan. He was suspiciously easy to convince, but Dokan admitted the 'set stuff on fire' was what got him.

Urushi, spoil sport and mother hen, stayed inside with the babies and anyone else who didn't want to sleep outside.

Iruka took vindictive delight in setting afire the log Mizuki used for his body replacement jutsu, and called the “play dead” mission to begin!

Everyone found spots to splay out and watch the bonfire burn. Iruka's twelve kunai quickly went from scattered to stolen, but Iruka convinced enough people that “play dead” meant they had to stick the kunai out as if they were stabbed. He took note of who died like that and who had been near the still-missing kunai, but ultimately was too tired to do anything more about it.

It was barely a half hour before the place was swarming with ninja.

“We should of made this a priority,” Iruka muttered to himself. “It would have fixed my other problems faster.”

Iruka didn't really know what happened after that. He was too exhausted to do anything but finally sleep.