The Great Medic (discontinued?)

17: Dawn of the Next Day

A/N - Not a very long chapter this time, but I enjoyed writing it! And it definitely didn't take as long as the previous one, for obvious reasons. That and this chapter was mostly written because I couldn't contain my excitement for this chapter and ended up writing parts of it here and there. So, all I had to do was merge a few parts and fix/add some new things since the release of the previous couple of chapters! Very happy and excited to post this chapter! I love this story so much! I will likely be taking a short break after this or the next chapter for my birthday (March 11th, where my fellow Pisces at?!) and it will probably be the only vacation I take the entire year hehe. (Yes, Luc, I know I need a vacation).

I'll be turning 20 this year and I keep thinking about how far this story has come since I first started writing this at 14. I've been working on The Great Medic specifically for six years, molding the story and then this rewrite having started in December 2020 meaning I've almost worked on it for two years. It's strange and so odd, I can't even begin to understand the time I've spent on this. Each chapter feels like blinking, taking only a second, and then all of the sudden you look, and boom, six years have gone by. I've grown so much since first posting this at 14. I'm glad I took that leave from fanfictions for a couple of years because it's now fun for me. It's no longer this obligation or something to get followers/likes/kudos/comments.

It's just mine.

Apologies for the rambling but I just felt like I needed to monologue this for future me to look at, maybe one day when I finish The Great Medic for good. My friends joke that I'll be working on this for ten years, I'm not sure. I'm bad at committing to things so I can't always guarantee that there will be an Until next time! like I usually do at the end of chapters but I like to think that I would.

Thank you, to all who've either been there since the beginning of my The Great Medic journey or those who have just joined. To my amazing supporters in my discord server and my mom who has always pushed me into writing and was my first fanfiction supporter. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. So, without further ado, please enjoy this chapter and... Until next time!

Iruka smiled to himself, running his fingers through his son's hair, the boy had fallen asleep shortly after his emotional outburst. His son... It did have a nice ring to it. "Oh, how far we've come, my dear." He found himself thinking, "How could I have ever hated you?" Maybe it was because of his age when Naruto first joined the academy, the freshness of the wound caused by his parents' deaths, or whatever young adult angst he'd been going through. He was only nineteen when he'd become a chunin and then subsequently became an academy teacher. Iruka separated a tangle in Naruto's head, reminiscing that day clearly despite the fog of exhaustion still clouding his head.

It had been his first day as an academy teacher, finally getting his own class to teach after interning under the older woman who he'd been hired to replace. She'd been a great teacher to him, fueling the will of fire to teach the future generations of Konohagakure, burning that same passion into them that he'd felt when he'd gone to school. It wasn't until the students started coming in that he saw him, Naruto Uzumaki who was a known troublemaker at the time and, unfortunately, someone Iruka used to hate. His nose scrunched up, stomach rolling with nausea at the thought, "How did I ever hate you...?"

For two years, that young boy seemed to torment Iruka whatever chance he got, at least, that's how his younger self found himself thinking day in and day out. Painting obscure things on the Hokage Monument, dropping erasers fully to the brim with chalk residue on Iruka's head upon entering the classroom, pouring super glue on chairs in hopes someone would get their butt stuck - it was all Naruto ever did. And it used to piss him off. A lot.