Maya - a Naruto Fanfic

5. Take Me To Your Leader

"What's going on here?!" A man storms out of the building towards us just as Ibiki grabs my arm again.

"Leave it alone, Iruka." Ibiki warns, but this Iruka looks like he's having none of it.

"What are you doing to that girl?" He scowls, glancing between me and Ibiki.

"That's no concern of yours." Ibiki snaps, yanking me closer to him.

"Let her go, Ibiki." Iruka makes it sound like a warning.

"She has to be taken to the Hokage." Ibiki doesn't look like he's going to back down.

"Then hand her over to me."

"You don't understand the situation."

"And you don't know how to handle children. Let her go."

"It's alright, Ibiki, I'll take it from here." Kakashi's lazy drawl cuts through their conversation like a knife, stopping both men dead in their tracks. Ibiki scowls and drops my arm, and I can't get away from him quick enough, scuttling over to Iruka as fast as my shaking legs will allow.

"Che." Ibiki clicks his tongue and turns away, stalking off down the road with his hands stuck in his pockets, the blond man following behind after nodded slightly to Kakashi. As soon as they're out of sight, my knees give out and I collapse to the ground with a heavy sigh.

"That was quite the show you two put on back there." Kakashi observes softly.

"You could have stepped in earlier. Are you alright?" Iruka asks me with a gentle smile, leaning down so he's almost eye-level with me.

"Uh..." I blink owlishly up at him. That must be the first time someone here has asked me that.

"Here." He holds out his hand to me. I raise my hand to take his, but pause, fingers hovering just over his palm. Is he going to hurt me too?

"It's alright, I just want to help you up." His smile seems a little pained now, but no less gentle. I let my hand drop onto his, and he pulls me carefully to my feet.

"What's your name?" He asks me.

"Maya..." I whisper. Kakashi's watching me again, with that deceptively disinterested look of his.

"Now that that's over with, we need to see the Hokage." He couldn't sound more bored if he tried. I scowl at him, twisting towards him with my eyes burning.

"You just left me with that psycho!" I yell, voice cracking.

"Yeah, yeah. Hurry up." He's already walking away, his hands tucked away in his pockets. It feels like I'm burning, and before I realise what I'm doing, I'm scooping a stone up from the ground and launching it with all my might at the back of his head. He sidesteps it without even looking, and I scream, picking up stone after stone, and when I'm out of stones handfuls of dirt and just throwing them and yelling until I'm out of breath. Iruka stares at me in open shock, but I don't care. What does it matter, when Kakashi is so calm and - and blasé about me - about a child - being tortured. What is wrong with this world?!

"Are you finished?" Kakashi asks, and I grind my teeth. Damn him, he hasn't even turned to face me.

"Good. Let's go." And he just keeps walking. That bastard.

Iruka chuckles and rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

"After you." He gestures after Kakashi. I nod, and follow, my head bowed. That anger is still burning in my chest, but I press it down. It won't affect any of them. Nothing seems to touch them. Anything I do is something they've seen before - they must have, otherwise they'd at least look shocked. So I swallow my rage, and I follow Kakashi into the unknown.

A/N: I re-wrote this when I posted it onto AO3, and I like this version a lot better, so here is chapter 5, rewritten.