Author's Note: This story was conceptualized when I read the chapter about Sarutobi's funeral. It was so somber, especially when Iruka embraced Konohamaru. That the beginning point for 30 Ways to Say a Single Farewell. It's probably less streamline than it should be, but while a better paced story might leave out some of the individual farewells, I just couldn't.

Thirty Ways to Say a Single Farewell

by Swiss Army Knife

"Do not stand at the stone and weep;
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand waves that roll.
I am the shade where young things grow.

I am the sunlight on ripening grain.
I am the soft, sustaining rain.
When you witness the seasons turn,
I am the fiery hands that burn,

Coloring every branch of Leaves.
I am the breeze stirring in all the trees.
So do not stand by a grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.

(Adaption of "I Am A Thousand Winds That Blow")

It rained, tears trailing down every leaf. The entire forest of Konoha dripped with moisture, which drenched the ground until it swelled. Black shirts stuck to wet backs. There wasn't a face that wasn't cold and plastered with bangs, no mouth that wasn't cut for the grave. And not one empty hand; there were too many children.

Out of the gathering, a single body separated. It seemed to take him a long time to reach the memorial, and then he stared into the dusky face which gazed back at him through water-spotted glass. Naruto drew a slow, congested breath before he was able to address the photograph. "I can't believe we're here, Sensei."

He could hardly swallow against the hollow ache in this throat. The physical pain reminded him of all the mourning he'd done recently, and his eyes burned in reflex. Leaning against the stone, Naruto pushed his drenched collar away from his neck.

"What I mean is, I can't believe you're here and not standing beside me."

Isolated in that private moment, Naruto barely registered the people at his back. After years of struggle, he had finally earned the respect of the entire village, and he knew they would give him time. Time to say farewell to the person who had meant so much to him in life.

Umino Iruka.

Naruto looked at the name carved into the stone face. After the academy had been destroyed with so many casualties, a separate tribute had been built to honor the teachers. Their contributions had been so easy to overlook until they were killed demonstrating a shinobi's greatest level of devotion to the village's most vulnerable citizens. Currently, that memorial bore thirteen names. It had been suggested that this final rite be carried out there, but Naruto had vehemently insisted on the Memorial Stone.

He exhaled, misting the air with a mixture of sorrow and vindication. 'You were never convinced you would be honored here,' he recalled. 'You always feared that where you were born would matter more than your true citizenship. Look at how wrong you were, Sensei.'

Behind him, a small multitude stood vigil in the downpour, fierce and devastated and proud. They were here to say goodbye to the man who some had called weak in life, whose politics and practices had challenged many, whose compassion had nurtured hundreds, and whose hands and words had taught them all. The entire village was here to say farewell to Iruka. Shinobi and civilians, colleagues and students, enemies and friends.

Naruto drew up his hand from his side, easing his white knuckled grip to reveal a small object. For a moment, he rotated it between his fingers, hearing the hoarse rattle. Only when he took the thin string and released the bell did the sweet, high note sound.

Naruto had brought a chrysanthemum for the Sandaime, but for Sensei he laid down a bell, setting it just beside the frame that held the man's picture. Once, bearing just such a gift, Iruka had taken him to this exact spot and helped him pray for the soul of his father. Naruto bowed his head, remembering. The feeling was not so different now.

Iruka had taught him to fasten buttons, to count, to fight. It was Iruka's strong, deft fingers he still felt adjusting his grip around a kunai, his phantom rumble of rebuke when Naruto threw it and the trajectory was off. The man's proud face was a treasured memory on the day of Naruto's graduation, his wedding.

'Sensei,' he thought.

How had this happened?

Shikamaru knew exactly how this had happened.

As he stood amidst the crowd, he could still hear the invasion alarm. His cheeks and chin were raw with burns, and moisture seeped through the bandages on his hands. He clinched his fists until he could feel the pain even through the dull insensibility he still felt, days after he had watched another mentor die.

He had been at the academy, a novice instructor with the ink barely dry on his qualifications. His decision to leave the field and become a teacher had bewildered his family and disappointed many who considered his abilities above such a position. He'd even met opposition from the council, who had berated him for wasting his potential. He would have liked to believe that Asuma-sensei would have understood, but that was something he would never know for sure.

He was sure that Iruka understood, though they had never spoken of it. Yet it had been Iruka who planted the seed. Shikamaru still remembered that day so long ago. Asked to stay after school, he had reluctantly parted with Chouji and returned to the empty classroom. There, he found his teacher setting out a battered shogi board on his desk, aligning the pieces with care.

Shikamaru had glowered at the wooden board. He knew what it was. There was a set in his father's study, though the pieces were rarely taken out of their polished boxes. Father had tried to interest him in playing, but Shikamaru could be stubborn. He grunted. "What is this?"

"Something troublesome," Sensei replied, but when Shikamaru gave him a look, he answered: "Training disguised at shogi tactics."

Shikamaru frowned but reluctantly allowed himself to be instructed. The game seemed simple, yet he felt a spark of interest as the possibilities unraveled in his head like a scroll. He felt his confidence grow after a few turns, and finally he made a bold move.

"Check," Sensei responded, his own piece emerging from nowhere. It had been a timed-out piece. A pawn.

Shikamaru stared, his shoulders rigid.

Iruka-sensei said, "You forgot about the enemies that weren't there yet," and then he smiled with all his teeth.

Shikamaru ran home that night, actually ran, and scared his father half to death by barreling into the living area and demanding the shogi board be laid out. Stunned, his father complied. That evening they had played the first of many games, and the ritual became a bond between father and son. Shikamaru still played with Sensei, too, of course. Sitting cross-legged on his teacher's desk, he would peer over the board and finger the pieces with the pads of his fingers. He was really, really good at it; nonetheless, it took him three years to beat Iruka.

He still remembered the evening shadows filling the classroom, his teacher's grin quirky and knowing, chin braced against his knuckles. During those times, his eyes had always been a little sharper than usual, and it had taught Shikamaru something about the inherent duplicity that lay in a ninja's calling. Iruka-sensei was a head-patter, hurt-tender, storyteller. But he was also strategian, manipulator, pawn killer. It had given Shikamaru an early respect for those whose roles most considered beneath them. All people who wore shinobi colors were dangerous adversaries, and that was true whether or not they were visible on the board.

Shikamaru returned from his memories back to the bleak present. Beside him stood his friends and family. Chouji attempted to muffle his grief with his hand. His recent use of the karorii kontorouru technique had left him diminished, and he visibly shook as he struggled to contain his emotions. He moaned, "How could this happen?"

Shikamaru had heard this question many, many times. But he knew the answer. He knew.

When the alarm sounded, it instantly silenced every creaking bench, scratching pencil, and tap of chalk. A dozen small faces turned toward the front desk, where their teacher had turned rigid and still. Even so young, the children were trained not to panic, but Shikamaru saw their fear. One gingerly raised her hand. "Are we going to the mountain, Sensei?"

Shikamaru gave a curt nod and signaled for them to follow.

The classrooms emptied just as the far-off sounds of battle reached them. Anxiety was in the faces of the tight-lipped adults, but no one was moving. Shikamaru himself, who knew the evacuation route as though it were a blueprint in his mind, felt as though his feet were papered with adhesive. The anchor of tiny fingers around the fabric of his pants weighed him down even as the siren continued to blare out the invasion warning.

The paralysis was broken by a presence who parted the crowd like water, and Shikamaru sagged with relief. Iruka-sensei was here.

"Quiet," Iruka commanded, and his steady voice carried easily over the tense murmuring. Calmly, he seized the gaze of every instructor, commanded every attention, and transformed a crowd threatened with hysteria into a portrait of comportment.

Behind him was the senior class: young shinobi only a few months from becoming academy graduates. They were Iruka's students, and though they were pale with nervousness, Shikamaru could see their determination to mimic their mentor's steely composure. Their eyes were pinned to his unwavering back, and their own shoulders lifted. Shikamaru felt his own doing the same.

"You know the procedure," Iruka spoke to the children and their guardians. "Once we're outside, follow your route and stay together. It's important we move quickly and quietly."

There was a collective acknowledgement as the hours of drilling fell into place. Shikamaru felt something come loose inside as Iruka led the way. He took the hand of his nearest student, and his class piled behind him.

They made it as far as the academy entrance, beyond which were the paths that would lead them to safety in the hidden caverns of the Hokage mountain, but just as they reached the front hall, there was a deafening roar from outside, and then the doors blew in on their hinges with a tremendous crunch and a spray of wood.

Searing heat blew against Shikamaru's face with the smell of cinders. A sound like a thousand snapping twigs reached his ears, heralding a plume of smoke. Flames roared across the academy grounds, which were already consumed with fire, an inferno that was beginning to climb the exterior walls of the building.

The smoke that was sucked into the entrance was incredible. At first it blotted their vision completely. Then it became possible to see an amorphous shape moving through the veil into their midst. The head and shoulders of a man – no, men – filled the entrance. Thirty of them or more, backlit by flying flakes of ash. Even the youngest children understood what their foreign hitai-ate meant, and Shikamaru read the color and make of their uniforms. Elite jounin. Though the pattern of the alarm had indicated a breech at the village wall, somehow the invaders had come to the academy.

At the head of the enemy shinobi, there was a particular man. He was a giant, and in his face Shikamaru saw the kind of brute intelligence that made one unyielding to reason. Clearly he was a man driven by a principle to which he was utterly devoted, and that was terrifying. In desperation, Shikamaru looked at his colleagues over the heads of the children and felt his heart sink. There was not one single academy teacher ranked higher than chuunin.

From out of the paralyzed silence, Iruka spoke. "It's against the laws of the shinobi nations to harm non-combatants," he said, standing in front of his students.

The enemy's shoulders rippled with laughter. "I'm sorry, Sensei, but we're here to fulfill a contract, and that supersedes any laws of conflict."

A contract?

Shikamaru's eyes widened, already calculating the meaning behind these words. It implied that someone among them was marked for death. Was the whole attack a distraction? What target could possibly be so valuable that the attackers would risk so much?

One of the teachers hissed through her teeth, "Who?" It was a helpless, angry sound, but she had obviously come to the same conclusion they all had. It would be better to turn over one person than to put so many in danger. For some reason, a knife twisted inside Shikamaru as he looked at Iruka's back.

The enemy bared his teeth so that the tips of his incisors sat neatly on the edge of his upturned lips. "The children."

The uniform reaction was shock. It would have cost millions, no, billions to pay off such a contract. Enough to conceivably make it worth attacking Konohagakure as a front. Enough to set the academy on fire.

Iruka's back and shoulders were stiff with fury. It was more than a lack of intimidation. He looked ready to fight, and the kids caught his verve. They faced their would-be killers with stony expressions, with taut lips that didn't pout. Shikamaru looked at his little ones, who were too young to understand, and saw that they had puffed up like sparrows.

"Sensei's gonna get them," one said in a hushed, indignant voice. Diminutive chins wobbled in agreement. At another time it would have been endearing – that they honestly could not imagine anyone more formidable than their Iruka-sensei.

The enemy must have seen all this, because when he spoke again, he directed his words toward his proper opponent. To Iruka, he said, "I have no bounty on your head. You could fight, but you will not win."

The implication, while not stated, was clear: Step aside.

"I'm sorry," Iruka answered. "That's unacceptable."

"Will you try to stop us? Take too long, and this academy will fall down on your heads." Even now, ashes twisted in the air. The beams groaned as the flames licked inside and the walls begin to blacken. The smell of burning wood filled the air with urgency. The enemy shrugged, perverse in his nonchalance. "It's all the same to me."

Iruka-sensei rested his hands on his nearest students, resolve knotting his face into his most forbidding scowl. "I will not stand down from defending this academy."

Something rotting and dark wriggled behind the stranger's eyes, like a worm around the core of an apple. "Are you sure? You don't want to make an enemy of me."

Iruka answered, "It's too late for that."

Then Shikamaru saw the flick of Iruka's fingers, no more than a fragment of a gesture. Yet Iruka was the academy's finest teacher, and all the children knew what that movement meant. Straight backed, Iruka stood before the invaders who had demanded his surrender….and then the room exploded into a whirlwind of white smoke as dozens of small hands dropped their kemuridama in one synchronized movement.

When the white cloud cleared, the intruders found that not a single child was left, only the crackle of the fire as it continued to spread.

Special Thanks: To my beta, Neocolai. This story is complete because of your influence and encouragement. I really appreciate you, Neocolai!

Author's Notes:
[1] The original version of the poem is by Mary Elizabeth Frye. Alterations and additions are often read at funerals, and so I also changed the details to fit the remembrance.
[2] Shogi, a Japanese game in the same family as chess, allows players to "drop" captured pieces onto the board. These pieces are actually referred to as being in hand rather than timed out, but I was metaphor-ing, so there.

Please take the time to leave a comment. As always, the best are those which tell what stuck out to you. Thank you!