Prologue, Part 1: Before

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
-Seneca

Iruka is one of the first waterbenders born to the Southern Water Tribe in the wake of the Hundred Year War.

Less than a decade after the war, and they still struggle to rebuild the Southern Tribe. It is nowhere near its former glory, but the help of its sister tribe has proven invaluable. That is how Iruka's parents meet.

His father is a warrior – or was, when warriors were desperately needed, when no one could see an end to the fighting and hope was a fragile, fading thing. Tikaani had survived the Fire Nation raids that had killed the rest of his family, had survived small Water Tribe raids against their more powerful enemy, had survived the battle on the Day of Black Sun, and the imprisonment that followed. He was not a particularly powerful warrior, nor particularly skilled, but he was a stubborn survivor, and had passed that trait down to his son.

Iruka's mother, Yuzuki, is from the Northern Water Tribe, part of the group led by Sifu Pakku to help their sister tribe recover and rebuild. She was a waterbending healer's apprentice then, and made the waterbender's ward when the last of Yuzuki's family was killed in the siege. She is not a waterbending prodigy; she never learns to fight as the legendary Katara does, even away from the strict traditions of her home tribe. But Yuzuki finds peace, and a purpose. One day she becomes a healer in her own right. And one day, she finds love in Tikaani.

Iruka is a cheerful child. He laughs and plays with the other children, goes penguin sledding and has snowball fights, builds igloos and plays at being a warrior. He joins the sporadic waterbending classes Sifu Katara holds; sporadic because she is a diplomat, a hero, and the Avatar's consort, and peace is still so new and precarious. She is away, in the Earth Kingdom or the Fire Nation, far more often than she is present. But her lessons are always a treat, for she rewards their efforts and achievements with stories of her adventures with the Avatar. Iruka loves the stories, soaks them up and repeats them to himself, imprints them in his mind.

And sometimes the other waterbending masters, what few there are, hold the occasional lesson. But they are so rarely available, and that is fine; Iruka is still a young child, hardly a prodigy, and he is among the oldest of this new generation of waterbenders. In any case, his father teaches him how to track, and how to throw a boomerang, and his mother teaches him all she knows of healing. Iruka thinks he'll be a warrior healer, maybe, when he grows up.

When Iruka is nine his world ends.

Tikaani is a trader now, has been since Yuzuki was pregnant with their son. This is the first time Iruka and his mother join him in a small trading group traveling north through the Earth Kingdom toward the Northern Water Tribe, and Iruka is wildly excited. He dreams of adventures, and epic battles, and all the new people he will meet. He walks hand in hand with his mother in the mornings when they break camp, and when he grows tired of walking and exploring the roadside, his father carries him or places him on the back of a buffalo yak. Each night he proudly helps to build the campfire, and each night his mother tells him stories of adventurers, of the Avatar, of the spirit world, and especially of Tui, La, and Yue, the spirits most important to the Water Tribes.

They are a day and a half away from Ba Sing Se when the raiders strike. Iruka doesn't understand. There is chaos and screaming and blood, so much blood. His father tries to rally them, and the men draw out clubs and scimitars, while the only other waterbending fighter in their group draws from a water skin.

"Down with the benders!" someone shouts. Iruka barely hears them; something tangles with his legs and he hits the ground hard. He needs to find water, needs to remember his waterbending lessons, but he trembles with panic and the breath is knocked from his lungs.

"Iruka!" his mother shouts, yanking him to his feet and shoving him toward the trees.

And then there is a man before him, in torn and dirty clothes the dark green and brown colors of the Earth Kingdom. His teeth are bared, gaps evident and a scar at the corner of his mouth, but it is the bandit's eyes that catch Iruka's, so cold and merciless and empty. The katana flashes out, and Iruka's mother yanks him back but not quite fast enough. He screams, wails in shock and agony as the sword edge drags across the bridge of his nose and blood drenches his face.

"Run Iruka!" his mother demands, tears in her eyes as she pushes him behind her, toward the forest. "Run fast, and hide!"

And his mother, who has never learned to fight, draws the water from her bag and mimics a fighting stance she has only ever seen and never attempted.

"Mama," Iruka whimpers, but he obeys. He turns and runs, crashing through the underbrush, blinded by blood and tears. He is far out of sight and out of hearing range when he climbs a tree and curls up in its branches, hidden by the leaves. The sky darkens, the temperature drops, and Iruka is freezing and hungry, but he waits. He waits, and he waits, but no one comes for him.

Eventually, Iruka finds his way back to the road, but all that remains are scraps of wood, fabric, and bloodstains. "Mama," he sobs. "Daddy." But there is no one, and eventually he trudges back to Ba Sing Se. Iruka doesn't know what else to do. He waits for someone to find him. No one does.

He joins the orphaned street children of Ba Sing Se. He learns how to beg and steal, where the best places to squat are, and how to tell whether a person will be more likely to beat him or help him. Iruka runs wild, grows hard and hungry, and if he can't quite give up his bending altogether, he hides it away where no one can see. Standing out is trouble. Some people pay quite well for young children that can be molded to suit their needs, and young impressionable benders are a rare treat.

Iruka is a survivor. It is something he inherited from his father. And the stories help, stories from his mother and Sifu Katara that he tells himself, cycles through them every night when the loneliness is crushing.

Over a year has passed when he is caught by a vaguely familiar looking man in the blue clothing of the Water Tribe. He catches Iruka healing a gash in his leg, and eventually the story comes out. The man, Aput, is heading to the Northern Water Tribe, not the South. But, Aput decides, Iruka needs a home and a teacher; he can stay or make his way back to the Southern Water Tribe with the next group headed that direction, but he won't leave him here, on the streets of Ba Sing Se. He is a dirty, half-wild thing, but Aput will not abandon a fellow tribesman, particularly one so young.

Iruka is wary and suspicious, but he knows the man won't let him be. And he knows the hardships and the cruelty of the streets, knows that this is likely the best offer he will ever receive if he wishes to make his way in the world.

Word is sent to Chief Hakoda about Iruka's survival, as well as a brief account of the raid, what Iruka remembers. He decides to remain in the Northern Water Tribe. He has no family left, nothing to return to, and there are more waterbending masters available here.

He has trouble adjusting. He runs wild, rebels against the strict traditions – not so strict as when Sifu Katara was forbidden to learn to fight, but the prejudice remains. He pranks, laughs when he feels like crying at the taunts from the other children. "Little girl," the boys call him, when they discover he knows healing, is quite good at it. "Gonna grow up and be someone's wife? Were you born without your man parts? Let's see, then, prove you're not a woman. You don't belong here learning waterbending; you're meant to report to the women's lodge."

Iruka doesn't understand their disregard for the healing arts. Even if it hadn't been his last connection to his mother, it is so useful. He would be dead by now if he couldn't heal himself. And so he continues to sit in on healing lessons, and fights back with fists and tricks when the bullies taunt him.

They are bigger and better at waterbending than he is. But his temper flares so quick and hot that he hardly cares; he is used to pain, in any case. And Iruka's father taught him traps. It's easy enough to adjust them to catch the boys in his pranks, and Iruka has always been creative. Waterbending simply broadens the possibilities for chaos and destruction.

His waterbending master is also his guardian. Sifu Kaito believes in hard work before natural talent, in building up strength, agility, and speed before building up waterbending skills. Iruka is impatient, as most of Sifu Kaito's students are. But the physical exercises calm him, teach him patience, and although Iruka never stops pranking, the purpose behind the pranks is less about forcing people to pay attention to him, and more about the satisfaction that comes from a job well done.

Iruka is nearly 14, nearly a waterbending master, when he leaves the Northern Water Tribe. His heart aches to know that, had his father lived, he would have been preparing to be taken ice dodging, a rite of passage that would prove Iruka ready to become a true warrior. He wonders if he would have been given the Mark of the Brave, the Wise, or the Trusted.

Instead he travels, wanders the world. Fellow travelers impart advice, teach him bits and pieces here and there, so that eventually he learns which of his hunting, trapping, and survival skills must be adjusted to these more temperate climes, and how. He knows how to survive – how to thrive – in the harsher arctic tundra. The city streets in the lowest quarters of Ba Sing Se, too, he endured. But the landscape here is far different.

He falls in with a band of Kyoshi warriors, and develops a crush for the first time. Ela has been a warrior for three years, and he follows the group back to Kyoshi Island. They show him how to use his waterbending moves in a hand-to-hand fight, and eventually are persuaded to teach him their style of fighting, which isn't so different from waterbending really. Iruka isn't what anyone would call a natural with the fans, but when Ela laughs and kisses him as a reward for his perseverance, he can't find it in himself to mind how often he makes mistakes. He is even worse with the katana, but after months of hard work they declare him acceptable. And he feels accomplished, feels proud because he incorporates other fighting styles into his waterbending, develops new waterbending moves, and he can't wait to see what else he can blend together. He is creative and unique, and he is beginning to see how to use those skills in something other than pranks.

After almost a year with the Kyoshi warriors, Iruka departs again. He and Ela grew close, so close, maybe too close, because in the last month they had been struggling, clashing, pushing each other apart. He leaves before there is nothing left, before they cannot even stand to be friends.

He wanders wherever his feet take him, returns briefly to Ba Sing Se, as a visitor this time instead of a street rat, explores the Foggy Swamp and is taken aback by the inhabitants, and ends up working as a janitor in a dojo owned by Toph Beifong, where both earthbenders and firebenders are taught. Iruka first learns the styles by watching, and then is invited to join the classes, as both student and practice opponent. It is good experience for all of them; three different elements, one-on-one or in a melee. Iruka never meets Toph Beifong, world's greatest earthbender, and he regrets it a little, but the instructors and students keep him busy.

Unsurprisingly, the firebending style gives him the most trouble. Earthbending has a balance to it, between offence and defense; it is not all about stubbornness, about facing opponents head-on with sheer bullheadedness, although Iruka has that in spades. It is about waiting and listening for the right moment to strike, and then striking decisively. Firebending, on the other hand, is overwhelmingly offensive, the movements swift, whirling, and constant. His muscles burn for weeks, as the teachers force him out of his area of comfort with an element and fighting style that is almost completely opposed to all he has been taught. It is difficult, the instructors often harsh and unyielding. But water adapts, and Iruka survives.

The students do not understand why he would waste time learning a bending style that is not his own, but they tolerate him. The instructors, on the other hand, are fascinated. General Iroh, Dragon of the West, is the only bender they know who incorporated another element's style into his own bending, mimicking waterbending movements to redirect lightning. It is a lesson that has become widely known, the information spread so as to help promote peace and tolerance between nations, and that story has always fascinated Iruka. It is, perhaps, why he is so determined to incorporate the influence of other elements, other styles, into his own waterbending.

One day Iruka awakes on a forest floor that he does not recognize. His pack digs awkwardly into his back, his boomerang is missing, and he does not remember how he got there. The sun is high in the sky, the temperature mild. Has he lost hours? Days? He searches for his boomerang, and never finds it.

Eventually he hears the flow of water and walks toward the sound, finds a stream and follows it. Some of the plants are familiar, but many are strange to him. Iruka has not seen their like before. His stomach clenches, his heart races with nerves when he truly considers his situation, so he tries not to think.

He does not travel far before coming across a small town, and something makes him pause out of sight in the shadow of the trees. He has never seen such clothes. The dull colors bring the Earth Kingdom to mind, but he has never in his life seen such strange styles. And the hair colors! He has never before seen yellow hair, and he cannot help but stare.

Eventually, frightened and confused, Iruka ventures into town. Eventually, he finds a map, of the country, of the world. Something – his heart – lodges in his throat, and he attempts to appear calm as he flees to the shelter of the forest.

"Impossible," he whispers, too panicked even for tears. His body is cold all over, shaking, and he thinks his heart will burst from his chest. "I don't…understand." He racks his memory and comes up with nothing. His mind is a blank. Nothing explains this. It had been just another day at the dojo, and then…what?

Iruka spends the next few nights in a tree, near water where he feels safest. Water is his element. His denial lasts only a few days, and then he can deny no longer. This is not his world. This country does not exist, this world should not exist, but it does, and his world is gone. Or, he has gone from it.

Iruka does not understand. He does not understand what, or how, or why. He assumes his situation has something to do with the spirits, because what else could it be? He has never heard of such a thing happening. But if it has before, how would the story spread? What happened? Had he trespassed on a sacred site, offended a powerful spirit, even stumbled into the spirit world itself?

Is this considered mercy? He has not been killed, merely sent elsewhere? He cannot know the minds of spirits. They are not human; with the exception of Princess Yue, they have never been human, and their ways are not his.

Iruka does not understand this world. Almost nothing is the same. Society and customs are strange, from what little he has managed to observe. Even the plants are unrecognizable, and the animals are bizarre. Many seem almost diminished in some way. It is as though they are missing part of themselves, as though they were only half-finished. Iruka knows no one and nothing. He thought his world ended when his parents died, but at least he knew the geography, the customs, the animals, even simply the clothes. At least he could always return to his childhood home. He had no family, and few friends, but at least there were people of his tribe, of his sister tribe.

Iruka thinks death may have been more merciful.

He does not know how much time he lost, between his last, ordinary day at the dojo, and the day he woke on the forest floor. And Iruka never regains the memories he lost.

This plot bunny is rabid. I've been sitting on it for a while, and already I have plans for a sequel and an AU spin-off sort of thing that would take place near the middle/end of this fic.

I'll also warn you that this is a sort of AU Naruto-verse. I'm not too familiar with Naruto, but I'll try to keep most of the things like geography, ninja, abilities, major plot lines, etc. the same, or at least similar. However, there will also be some deliberate changes, as you will see in a chapter or two.

Also, this will eventually be kakairu. Don't complain if you don't like it, since I'm warning you now.