I need everyone who likes Iruka Umino or KKIRU to hear me out for a second here, alright?
We know that Iruka is someone who holds back so he doesn’t have to become a ninja, right? And we know (or at least I know) that he was probably adjusting very poorly to ninja life before he decided to become a teacher. And this is all building up to a headcanon I just came up with.
What if during that time as a ninja, he actually spent a lot of time with medical ninjas? One took some kind of pity on him and decided to take him under their wing. Iruka may not be fast or strong, but he is way too clever for his own good. He’s brilliant, crafty and very creative. He watched them heal people from using their own chakra to clear pathways and repair internal bleeding from the inside without the use of surgery, and he figured out that if you could heal someone from the inside without laying a hand on them — you could break from the inside without laying a hand on them.
Which is how he learned how to manipulate internal organs without touching someone. Usually, he would go for the heart or lungs but he has ruptured someone’s spleen before.
And with it, he has the power to:
- Slow or accelerate a heartbeat.
- Force lungs to fill or empty too fast.
- Cause blood vessels to constrict or rupture.
- Control muscles and tendons like a puppeteer.
- Paralyze nerve clusters.
- Cause very serious internal damage.
- Or, if he’s focused and careful enough — he can heal the damage he just caused.
But this power does come with its limitations too.
To create this pathway, it has to be almost like an emphatic connection between chakras. So not only is Iruka at his most powerful when this happens, spiritually and physically, he’s at his most vulnerable. Not to mention with this connection, if the damage is great enough, although he may not have the damage, he’ll be able to feel whatever the hell he just put someone else through. And using it constantly will cause him extreme amounts of pain. So he’s just as much at the mercy of himself as his opponent.
He can control multiple people at a time, but that can often cause fatigue. Especially because after his last mission as a ninja, he stopped using it often. (I have an entire headcanon for THAT too.) The stronger the chakra, the harder it is for Iruka to get a hold over it. But with weak defenses and some quick hand signals, just about anyone can become his puppet in as little as 30 seconds. But, this also has certain conditions that have to be met:
- Weak defenses or Iruka has to unleash at least HALF of his own chakra potential to overpower someone else’s and force their will upon them.
- His abilities rely a few things; his surroundings, his emotions and his senses. If he’s in an area where he’s intimately familiar with it, it makes using his ability easier. I am personally of the headcanon that his chakra does get stronger if he’s pissed or hellbent on something. AND, if you can trigger at least one of his five senses, he can control you.
- For instance, I’m of the HC that Iruka is way more sensitive to other people’s chakras than most. What was once a huge liability actually helps him with this certain jutsu he created. It’s easier and stronger if someone is in his line of sight. But if he can feel your chakra, he can likely pinpoint where you are and control you. So if he can feel you or see you, your ass is grass.
- And his hands have to touch at some point. He can do this if his hands are forcibly apart, his palms have to touch each other at least once.
Not only is this jutsu wrong on so many moral levels and a few ethnical ones, it takes a LOT of Iruka’s mental strength and health to do it. He has to overpower someone’s energy and force his will onto theirs, that has got to take a mental toll on someone like him.
Which would make kkiru in this situation very interesting. Because you have two very powerful men who likely bent and broke several moral and ethnical laws to get where they are today, who probably understand the guilt of having that kind of power better than anyone else.
Now imagining them both learning from each other and being able to understand the other. Iruka teaching Kakashi that he shouldn’t be so powerful that he forgets to be kind, and Kakashi teaching Iruka that he shouldn’t be so kind that he forgets he that he’s powerful.
