Kapitel 20: Chapter 24: 1-14: Trap
Disclaimer: Being neither British nor Japanese, it should therefore come as no surprise that I own neither Harry Potter nor Naruto, nor anything from their respective franchises.
As they had arranged, Headmaster Dumbledore received an owl at dinner that Thursday and left citing urgent Ministry business. He also made sure that Quirrell was well within earshot when he told Professor McGonagall that he'd be gone until at least the next day.
Iruka made sure to draw out his sealing class that evening, keeping Quirrell in his classroom for as long as possible in the hopes that impatience would drive the man to try for the Stone as soon as he was out of sight. Finally, with half an hour before curfew, he dismissed the class. Avid (and semi-secret) students that they were, S.E.N. were seated in the front row, so Iruka could clearly see Harry cringe and grip his forehead during their conversation and emit a slight hiss of pain.
"Are you feeling all right, Harry?" Neville asked his friend.
"Yeah, just a bad headache; feels like somebody stuck a hot knife into my forehead."
"It's probably just the stress of exams," Hermione advised, "you should get some rest."
"It can't be just the exams," Harry replied somewhat testily, "I've been getting these all year, and always in the same place too."
It was then that Iruka noticed that the young Gryffindor was rubbing the exact location of his scar.
His scar...
An icy hand gripped Iruka's heart as he recalled another cursed mark left by a man disturbingly similar to the one that had marked Harry, how that mark had pained those afflicted with it in response to its creator, and how that creator had used it as a way to repeatedly cheat death. It wasn't Quirinus Quirrell that wanted the Elixir of Life, or at least not him alone.
It was Voldemort.
He immediately stepped over to the three and bent down. "I need you three to get Professor McGonagall, right away. Tell her that I need backup in the forbidden corridor, that the thief is making his move tonight and that he is extremely dangerous. Hurry!" His voice was soft enough that the remaining students wouldn't hear it, but it carried as much urgency as Iruka could manage at that volume.
The trio looked at him in shock for a moment, then nodded with looks of resolve on their faces, hurriedly grabbing their possessions as Iruka made his way out of the classroom.
As soon as he was out of sight of others, Iruka sped back to his quarters. A terminally-ill man desperate to escape death was one thing, but if the actual goal was to restore life to a terrorist so fearsome that people still refused to speak his name a decade after his apparent death, watching and waiting was not a good idea. The only option was to stop Quirrell before he could achieve his goal, no matter what. Reaching his rooms, the chuunin shucked his teaching robes in a single fluid motion and immediately began putting on his shinobi gear; there was no way he was going to potentially confront an S-Rank criminal with just the few kunai he had concealed on him. Thankfully he'd checked it all over and laid it out prior to dinner, but still he berated himself for not wearing it all evening. At the time he'd prioritized secrecy, not wanting to arouse Quirrell's suspicions by having large, visible bulges under his teaching robes.
A few minutes later Iruka emerged, fully geared and ready for battle, and headed for the third floor. Opening the door with an Unlocking Charm, he heard three rumbling growls and saw Fluffy glaring at him thrice over. A harp stood nearby; it had probably been charmed to play itself, but if it had that charm had clearly worn off. Casting his dignity aside and calling upon the part of him that stepped on stage after several cups of sake, the Leaf-nin began singing a lullaby that his mother had often used to lull him to sleep so long ago. While his fellow chuunin teachers hadn't exactly given his karaoke performances good reviews, Fluffy was apparently a bit less picky about music. Several minutes of singing later, Iruka was listening to canine snoring in three-part disharmony. Unfortunately, one gigantic paw was lying right across the trapdoor, and he only barely managed to not wake the irascible cerberus as he carefully lifted that paw aside.
Silently shining a lumos down the hole, Iruka couldn't clearly make out the bottom, but it was definitely at least thirty or forty meters away. He really didn't want to risk such a drop, so with a bit of careful maneuvering he clambered onto the ceiling and then the wall of the shaft below, which thankfully was more than wide enough for him to stand upright as he made his way down. Once he was far enough that Fluffy wouldn't be able to reach him, he finally relaxed and stopped singing. Finally low enough to be confident in his landing, Iruka stepped off the wall.
Instead of the hard stone floor Iruka expected to land on, however he found himself in a soft mass of writhing vines that immediately began wrapping around various parts of his body. His first response, simply pulling free, was counterproductive as the tendrils around him tightened. Cutting through with kunai also failed to make any progress as the creepers simply seemed to become more aggressive and more numerous. Worried now, he dropped the kunai and managed to bring his hands together long enough to form a few quick hand seals. A thin stream of liquid fire erupted from his pursed lips, and wherever it landed the vines quickly retreated, soon leaving Iruka free and standing in the midst of a large area of bare floor. Scooping up and re-sheathing his kunai, he made for the passageway that was the room's only other exit.
Hearing only the sounds of dripping water and of the slithering vines behind him, Iruka proceeded silently down the passageway's gentle downward slope, using only the little ambient light to avoid drawing attention from either Quirrell or whatever other guardians awaited. Soon enough, new sounds became noticeable, as did a light ahead; he could hear clinking and rustling noises coming from his destination. It was as he stepped into the lit chamber that he saw their source: Flying overhead was a vast flock of glittering, brilliantly-colored birds. No, not birds, he realized as he looked more carefully - keys! The obvious explanation was that one of those winged keys would be needed to reach the Stone, but which one?
An examination of the door and its lock confirmed that one, it was indeed locked; two, the Unlocking Charm didn't work on it; and three, the matching key was likely large and silver. Unfortunately, trying to pick the correct key out of possibly thousands of candidates when all were rapidly moving around and a good distance away would be near-impossible. Fortunately, the brooms in one corner of the room suggested a means for a closer look (not to mention a clear way to actually get the key). As he chose a broom, Iruka made a note to berate whoever designed this obstacle for providing the brooms and making a would-be thief's job vastly easier, though he'd also thank them for making his job easier as well.
It took quite a few minutes of flying around and through the swarm of key-birds to spot a likely candidate: One of its wings was damaged, many of its blue feathers bent, though this didn't seem to noticeably impair its ability to fly. An aerial chase followed, with the key fleeing faster and more nimbly than the Golden Snitch in the school Quidditch matches. Iruka's shinobi training gave him enough situational awareness to not lose track of the key, and reflexes and agility to put a professional Seeker to shame, but he'd only spent perhaps a hundred or so hours in the air, and his lack of flying experience was definitely working against him. Finally, after a couple minutes of pursuit, he drew a handful of shuriken. Herding the key out to the edge of the swarm to get its brethren out of the way, Iruka sent the steel stars spinning through the air. The key tried to dodge, but one of the edged projectiles managed to score a hit on the already-damaged wing and sent the ersatz bird on a pitiful spiral to the floor.
A quick landing later, Iruka had the key in his hand despite its feeble struggles, and headed for the door. The next chamber was initially pitch-black, but as he stepped in and the torches on the walls flared to life, he couldn't help but groan out the one word that came to mind at the sight revealed before him.
"Mendokusei..."
The entire width of the room in front of him was filled by a gigantic chessboard, its stone pieces all easily over two meters in height. Faceless white chessmen stood facing him at the far edge, another door visible behind them, while he stood just behind black's ranks. "Let me guess," he sighed, "I have to play through?" Several nearby pieces nodded curtly. "I bet I'll have to stand as one of the black pieces, too." More nods. "And if I try to cross without playing?" At this, each of the white pieces took ready stances and drew weapons that were clearly lethally sharp. Considering the speed and fluidity of their movements, he couldn't be certain of his ability to slip past them unharmed. Even if he managed that, there was no guarantee that they wouldn't follow him deeper in, and he did not want to have to deal with sixteen dangerous assailants at the same time as any subsequent obstacles, to say nothing of the deadly opponent waiting somewhere ahead. "All right, I'll stand as the king." At his words, the black king stepped off the board and stood by the wall.
While he was certainly no Nara, Iruka was hardly an idiot. Still, the game was hard-fought, and it was an impatient chuunin that stormed through the far door and had his already dark mood worsened by a familiar stench. Lying on the ground unconscious was a troll even larger than the one at Halloween. At least this obstacle wouldn't slow him down.
Behind the next door was a small room containing nothing more threatening than a small table with an array of bottles lined up across it and a roll of paper beside the bottles. The instant Iruka stepped fully into the room, however, a wall of purple flames erupted blocking the doorway behind him as black flames blocked the door opposite. A quick genjutsu-release confirmed that these oddly-colored flames were likely real, which made the chuunin more than a tad uncomfortable as he recalled the only black flames he'd ever heard of; he could only hope that whatever these were, they weren't as unstoppable or all-consuming. If there were enough water available, he'd have tried overwhelming the flames with suiton, but between conjuring and manipulating that amount of water, he'd end up exhausted - not a good state to be in when expecting a fight.
The paper held a simple logic puzzle in the form of a short poem; comparing it to the bottles (which were all, strangely, completely full) it wasn't hard for Iruka to figure out what should be in which bottle. What worried him was the possibility that Quirrell could have switched bottles around or mixed their contents. He pulled the stoppers on each bottle, sniffing at their contents. They seemed to match what he expected, but there really was only one way to find out for certain.
Ever since he'd read about their curative properties, Iruka had kept at least one bezoar on him at all times, with several kept in one of his vest pouches. He took these out now, laying them on the table in case he or his backup (which he hoped was coming) chose badly wrong, before taking a swig of the potion on the far right. An icy feeling came over him, and a quick check confirmed that the purple flames felt no hotter than a Floo. He grabbed the paper and pulled a pencil from his kit to jot his solution to the riddle next to the poem, hoping to save his backup a bit of time and trouble, before downing the contents of the smallest bottle; again, he felt like he'd been dipped in ice water.
Replacing the bottle (and seeing it already starting to refill somehow), he steeled himself and stepped through the black flames.
A/N: In the finest tradition of the Naruto anime, cliffhanger!
In response to a guest review, I can 100% assure you that ninjas will not be overrunning this story. That is, in fact, part of the point - I want to keep ninja interference to a minimum, focusing instead on Iruka's influence through teaching, supporting, and advising. As far as the students involved, I didn't want to end up populating my story with OCs, and thus have relied as much as possible on canon characters. Unfortunately, JKR didn't really develop many of the side characters all that much, which leaves my options for Iruka's students relatively limited without inventing significant amounts of backstory to justify the inclusion of others. Every student he teaches, he has reasons to begin teaching. Now, if you wanted to do your own version where he picks up some other students that aren't as 'cliche', please just send me a message when you post it so I can see somebody else's take on the concept.
Fic Recommendation: "When Summoning, Please Watch The Wording" by Ryuuza Kochou, a fairly unique Supernatural crossover (with Good Omens, a truly amazing book by Neil Gaiman and the late Sir Terry Pratchett) that perfectly captures the book's style and mindset, particularly regarding the characters used.
Posted 28 January, 2018
Current WIP Chapter: 52
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