Pranks galore!
In the backyard of a certain house, there was a large group of kids huddled together, all of them having serious expressions on their faces.
“So we’re definitely going to go through with this?” Ino asked, flicking her hair out of her eyes. Despite the nature of her question, there was a wicked gleam in her pale blue eyes as she looked at each of her friends.
Kiba scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “‘Course we are! No way are we going to back out after all our planning!”
“I agree, because it would mean that we just wasted our time,” Shino piped in, adding his two Ryo from where he was seated in the shade of a tree, right at the edge of the group but included all the same.
Sai muffled a chuckle in his sleeve, murmuring, “If even Shino says so, then we must do it.”
There were other noises of agreement, none of the kids wanting to drop their plans after spending so long on perfecting them.
Tossing the ball in his hand up into the air and catching it when it inevitably came back down, Naruto spoke, “Next question: are we going to do everything all at once or should we space them out?”
“I think we should space them out,” Hinata suggested, reaching for the scattered papers on the grass and organizing them in a folder that she pulled out of her bag. “That way our back-up plans would still work if we need them.”
“Troublesome, but she’s right,” Shikamaru groaned, falling onto his back to stare up at the sky. He had no idea how he had allowed himself to be dragged into something so troublesome, but Naruto and Ino would kill him if he tried to withdraw. One of them was bad enough; put the two together and they would rain down hell on him.
“Because that way we’ll have some of us free to act as alibis for the others?” Sasuke asked absently, swiping Naruto’s ball when it came down, smirking when the blond glared at him.
“Exactly.”
Sakura giggled, green eyes sparkling with mirth as she commented, “Sasuke-kun and Shikamaru-kun are on opposite sides of the personality spectrum but the way they think is so alike.”
“Take that back!”
Sasuke and Shikamaru glared at Sakura and then at each other, not liking that they had essentially proved the pinkette’s point by speaking the same words in unison. The two friends were weird that way.
“Calm down, you two,” Neji interjected, deftly spinning a flailing Naruto around to sit him down between the two dark-haired boys. Neither Shikamaru nor Sasuke would do anything to the other with Naruto there to get between them.
The blond had a very effective face of disapproval -which was only beaten by his sister and Itachi- and no one wanted to be on the wrong end of that look.
“Com on, guys, focus,” Karin called out loudly, making everyone turn to look at her. The redhead adjusted her glasses, adding, “We need to decide what we’re going to do and in what order before Nee-san comes home.”
“Too late~”
The kids jolted, heads swiveling around in shock. The redhead in question turned the corner at that very moment, prompting them to scramble around in panic. All of their plans were still out in the open, with only a few of them hidden in Hinata’s folder.
“Nee-san! What are you doing home so early?! You said you wouldn’t be back until the weekend!”
“I did,” Hikari allowed, eyes squinted as she studied her siblings and the other kids’ shifty behavior. The lot had been discussing something before she had arrived and she had only caught the tail end of Karin’s sentence. “But we found the hidden base quicker than expected, so here we are.”
Sasuke stiffened, echoing, “‘We’?”
“Yes, ‘we’, Sasuke,” Itachi answered for the redhead, coming up behind Hikari with Shisui in tow. “Do recall that we’re a team, little brother.”
“Nii-san! Stop teasing me!”
“Never mind that,” Hikari interrupted, an eyebrow raised as she stared at the kids, a smile threatening to break out when they squirmed under her gaze, even the usually unflappable Neji. “I smell mischief…what are you guys planning?”
Gaara’s fingers twitched and a wave of sand rose out of nowhere, enveloping the papers and effectively hiding them from view. He didn’t care about being obvious, since the older trio had already seen them. “Nothing.”
“I don’t buy it,” Shisui remarked, grinning at the wide-eyed looks of innocence Ino, Sakura and even Tenten shot him. “Cute, but no, that won’t work, girls. That’s a lot of effort for ‘nothing’.”
There was a staring contest, neither side backing down.
“Ah!”
Hikari’s eyes brightened in realization and her smile grew wider, fixing her stare upon a certain blond boy. “I seem to recall that particular expression on little brother’s face…”
Naruto gulped, sure that they were caught.
“What pranks are you planning this time?”
The kids deflated, Gaara removing the sand at a signal from Naruto. Of course they couldn’t hide it from Hikari.
“They were just a few things we were planning to do to some of the teachers at the Academy,” Chouji explained as he munched on a bag of chips, not really as concerned as the rest of his friends. He knew that the older girl wouldn’t really punish them all that much.
Shisui hummed, picking up one of the papers and skimming through it. He whistled in surprise; those were incredibly detailed plans for Academy kids. He knew Chuunin that couldn’t do even half of the stuff he was seeing.
“Hey, Hikari-chan, Itachi, take a look at this.”
The two moved to stand on either side of the older Uchiha, looking at the paper he was holding.
“Huh. Only the Academy,” Hikari stated after a cursory glance at one of the plans the kids had devised. “You’re not targeting anyone else?”
“No,” Tenten pouted. She had relaxed when it was clear that they weren’t going to be scolded or punished badly, sitting cross-legged on the grass. “Those instructors are some of the people who are mean to Naruto and Gaara, and since no one really listens to us, we decided to prank them a bit.”
“I wanted to include the rest of the villagers too,” Shin exclaimed, Yakumo nodding eagerly as she continued, “But Naruto-kun and Gaara-kun said that civilians can’t stand up to shinobi and we shouldn’t target them, even if none of us is Genin yet.”
Hikari hummed in acknowledgment, crouching to take a look at the rest of the papers on the ground. Seeing that, Itachi got a bad feeling. “Hikari…?”
“They’re right; you can’t use pranks of this level on untrained civilians,” the girl said lightly, earning an amused snort from Shisui and a look of trepidation from Itachi. “You have to go for something simpler.”
“Huh?”
Hikari and Shisui burst out laughing at the sheer dumbfounded looks the kids gave them, Itachi sighing in exasperation. “Of course you’d say that,” he muttered under his breath, low enough that the children wouldn’t hear but his friends would, making the two laugh harder. “You’re an unashamed prankster yourself.”
“What do you mean by that?” Shikamaru asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed as he stared at the older sister of his best friend.
“She means that you should absolutely target the civilians, just with pranks tailored to them,” Shisui replied, having gotten his mirth under control. He loved the kids; they were just adorable balls of energy and entertaining antics. “Switch things up a bit, keep everyone on their toes, you know?”
“Yep,” Hikari chirped cheerfully, grinning at the kids. “But first, you must follow these rules.”
Itachi sensed an incoming headache. Why was he friends with two mischief-makers again?
“We mustn’t hurt anyone!” Lee exclaimed, eyes shining as he jumped into the conversation. They weren’t going to be punished and instead, were receiving assistance. How youthful!
“That’s one of them,” Hikari agreed with some measure of amusement, eyeing the hyperactive boy with a smile. If he grew any more enthusiastic, he’d be vibrating on the spot. “Nothing malicious is another; pranks are generally humiliating, but you should never go overboard.”
The children nodded firmly, hanging onto her every word.
“Like Lee said, nothing that can hurt people physically,” Shisui reiterated, sitting down next to Hikari. “Things like minor bruises are okay, though, if it’s unavoidable.”
“Last one!” Hikari exclaimed with a beaming smile, clapping her hands to disperse the serious atmosphere. “Never get caught!”
That got everyone to burst into raucous laughter, Naruto yelling, “Never! We’re too good for that!”
Unable to resist a smile at the sight of the cheerful group, Itachi sighed. “Is it really wise to set them loose on the village?” he asked Shisui, watching as Hikari promptly dived into helping the kids refine their plans.
“Don’t worry; the brats know not to go too far,” the older Uchiha grinned, winking conspiratorially at a giggling Karin. “We still have the threat of Hikari-chan and their parents to hold over them. Besides, do you think that she herself wouldn’t prank those people if the kids didn’t?”
“Better the children than Hikari then. We wouldn’t have a village if we set her loose,” Itachi murmured, twitching when he caught snippets of the redhead telling Gaara to use his sand eye and Sai his ink animals for spying, and creative uses of her Genjutsu for Yakumo.
Yeah, Konoha was doomed.
He could already hear the screams of the unsuspecting victims.
Oh, whatever.
Not like they didn’t deserve it.