Iruka reached for his cup of coffee, only to find that it had found its way to the floor. He sighed, bent down from his chair, and picked it back up. Staring intently at the bottom of the cup, it appeared as if he was willing more coffee to appear. When nothing happened, the chuunin released another sigh and set the cup on his desk. He didn’t need it anymore; he had finished his work. The folder filed with teams sat proudly on his desk. It had been a long, sleepless night, but Iruka had finished creating all of the genin teams. All he had left to do was to hand deliver the folder to the Hokage. Grabbing lazily at said folder, he had accidentally knocked it off his desk. It landed at just the wrong angle to spill papers everywhere. Iruka had yet to register that his late nights work had been destroyed and simply stared as if watching something happening under the floor. Seconds passed by at an astounding rate, quickly becoming minutes. At long last, something in Iruka’s head clicked.
“Shit,” he grumbled, as he got down on his hands and knees to pick up the fallen profiles of all his students. He began to look at the one in his hand.
“Daichi? Wasn’t he with Fuki and Futaba? I think that’s right. God, I need some caffeine.” It occurred to him to make more coffee, but the list of teams was due to the Hokage in around half an hour. He would just have to do his best with his eyes half open. Teachers shouldn’t have to work without coffee. With this thought running grudgingly through his mind, he began to lift more profiles….
After a little more than half and hour, though to Iruka it seemed as if it had been half a year, there were only nine more profiles on the floor. Let me see… There’s Sakura, Sasuke, Ino, Shikamaru, Shino, Chouji, Kiba, Hinata, and of course Naruto. Now, how did I have these? Suddenly, a man with a similar scar as Iruka’s appeared in front of him with a puff of smoke. The teacher sighed aloud; this was not what he needed right now.
“Oi! Iruka, Hayate was looking for you. You had better go find him now.”
“Right Kotetsu. By the way, it looks like you need to change that damn bandage on your face.” It was an ongoing argument between the two; Iruka kept his scar visible as reminder to himself, but Kotetsu was too vain to allow his to remain visible. However, Kotetsu was no genjutsu expert, so he was reduced to his white bandages. As Iruka stood to leave, he remembered that he was late returning the teams to the Hokage. Kotetsu saw Iruka’s troubled face, and asked what was wrong.
“I had just forgotten that I need to get this to the Hokage.”
“Relax Iruka. I’ll bring it for you.” Without giving him a chance to respond, Kotetsu took the folder out of Iruka’s hands.
“No, wait!” but it was too late. I another puff of smoke, Kotetsu was gone. Iruka tried to remember what order his students were in. He didn’t finish his last nine. It can’t be that bad, right? I mean, how many bad combinations are there? Every possibility ran through his mind, and he started breaking out in a sweat. He had a very bad feeling about this.