With friends like these...
Kakashi had heard about Uchiha Itachi. When a thirteen year old snaps, murders his entire clan, and kidnaps his little brother before going missing nin, news tends to get around. He suspected Itachi might actually be higher on Konoha’s most wanted list than Kakashi himself, which was an achievement considering Kakashi had stolen the village’s jinchuuriki. Anyway he’d heard about it when Itachi went missing nin, and he’d vaguely expected to run into him at some point, if only because most missing nin tended to end up frequenting similar dodgy bars.
Still he hadn’t expected to run into him in the middle of a stealth assassination mission. It was very awkward. The husband had hired Kakashi to kill his wife, the wife had hired Itachi to kill her husband, and they ran into each other when they both picked the same rooftop vantage point to plan their entrance. It had taken a great deal of whispered discussion to work out a way for both of them to complete their missions and get paid. In the end they’d decided to retreat while they worked out where their respective clients were keeping the money so that they could retrieve it after their missions were complete.
Kakashi was actually quite surprised at how much he liked Itachi, he didn’t have Zabuza’s sadistic sense of humour, or Tsunade’s utterly ridiculous old war stories, but he was gratifyingly impressed by Kakashi. It was actually pretty flattering to find out that it was his inspiration that had led Itachi to take his little brother with him when he abandoned the village.
“And I thought, well if Kakashi senpai could do it then so could I. He’s my little brother. It would be irresponsible to leave him on his own in the village, when I could take perfectly good care of him on the road. He always loved me best anyway.” It was so cute how much he cared for his little brother. Kakashi approved.
“You know we really should introduce Sasuke and Naruto, it would be good for them to have more friends their own age.” Kakashi suggested. Itachi agreed and three hours later they were at the arranged meeting place planning out the final details of the mission, while the kids got to know each other.
…
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the interloper who’d interrupted his time with his big brother. He was concerned. What if the interloper tried to steal Itachi when he saw how obviously superior he was to his own big brother. He decided to make his position clear from the start.
“You can’t have Itachi. He’s my big brother. You’ll just have to make do with the one you’ve got.” Naruto bristled at the implications.
“Why would I want your stupid big brother anyway? My Kashi nii-san is the coolest big brother in the world, way better than your brother.” Sasuke was horrified, this boy wasn’t just an interloper, he was a heretic, Itachi was clearly the best brother, how could he say something so obviously untrue.
“No he’s not. No-one is better than Itachi nii-san. Itachi nii-san taught me how to destroy a whole village with katon jutsu.”
“Yeah well Kashi nii-san taught me how to cook ramen, dattebayo.” Naruto retorted.
“Tachi-nii once killed a hundred bandits in one minute.” Sasuke was not above exaggeration. It conveyed the spirit of how awesome Itachi was even if it wasn’t exactly true. Like a metaphor.
“Well Kashi nii killed a thousand bandits in a minute. And he has a sharingan.” Naruto just wasn’t all that good at counting yet.
“Well Itachi nii has two sharingan, and I will too one day so there. And Tachi nii used to be Anbu.” Both of their voices had been rising steadily as the argument went on.
“Kashi nii was an Anbu captain. He’s way better than Itachi.” That was the point where Sasuke lost his temper and lunged for Naruto. The two of them were far too angry for any kind of technique and the fight quickly dissolved into them rolling around on the floor trying to strangle each other.
The two older ninja glanced over at the noise, Kakashi’s eye crinkled at the corner in amusement and Itachi gave a small quiet smile, it was so good to see the boys getting on so well.
They left the kids with a shadow clone each to supervise while they finished their missions. Naruto and Sasuke were too busy trying to murder each other to notice them leave. This meant that when the shadow clones tried to separate them so they could have lunch they forgot to pull their punches. The inevitable happened, the clones ended up bursting, and Naruto and Sasuke were left unsupervised. It didn’t take long for them to declare an uneasy truce while they tried to find something to eat, and so together they headed off in the direction of the old temple they could see in the distance.
…
Kakashi and Itachi returned to find the two kids trying to strangle each other in the middle of a smoking crater, while all around them mysterious masked figures danced and chanted and burned incense, and what looked like a sacrificial goat bleated plaintively in the background. They took one look at each other, shunshined in, grabbed the kids, and then shunshined back out again faster than the civilians could see. Then they made a run for it.
Kakashi took out a map and carefully drew a cross in red ink over the area they’d just left. Itachi noticed that the map was already covered in similar red marks in locations from tea country to snow country. He tried very hard not to think about the implications and instead turned to Sasuke.
“What happened?”
“It was Naruto’s fault.” Sasuke replied sulkily.
“No it wasn’t. It was Sasuke-teme’s fault.” Naruto shouted.
“It was your idea to go and investigate the mysterious lost temple.” Sasuke pointed out.
“Well you were the one that lit the mystic fires, and angered the high priest.”
“Well that would have been fine if you’d just apologised instead of challenging the high priest to a dual of the faith and then accidentally banishing him to another dimension.” Itachi’s eyebrows had been rising steadily as the conversation went on but Kakashi appeared unfazed.
“Yeah but then you decided that the best way to fix things was to declare us Gods. I mean, who does that?”
“People who don’t want to be burned at the stake for witchcraft, because someone used unholy dimension warping seals against a priest of a cult that don’t believe in Chakra.” It was at that point Kakashi decided to interrupt.
“Maa, maa children. Lets not get caught up in who caused which holy war. The important thing is that you had fun together while we were gone and no-one got hurt.” Itachi wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or impressed by how laid back he was.
“Apart from the high priest.” Sasuke pointed out.
“True.” Kakashi admitted.
“And the guards.” Sasuke pressed.
“Well…”
“And all the members of the priesthood that didn’t manage to get out of the temple before it collapsed into a rift in space-time.” Kakashi sighed.
“Allow me to rephrase, aside from random civilians that no-one really cares about anyway, no-one got hurt.”
“So basically as long as Sasuke and Naruto didn’t get hurt, everything is fine?” Itachi checked to clarify.
“Hmm, Yes pretty much.” Itachi thought about it for a while and then nodded. He saw nothing wrong with that reasoning.
…
Tenzo was an elite member of Anbu, trained in many advanced tracking techniques and possessed of many secret skills. It took absolutely none of those techniques to find Tsunade. All he’d had to do was follow the trail of angry debtors. He was almost disappointed.
He found her in a bar, in the process of steadily losing all her money in a game that looked like it might be related to poker, in some twisted, convoluted, and possibly incestuous way. He got her attention by the simple method of sitting in the corner and staring at her creepily until she gave up on trying to ignore him.
Half an hour later and they were sitting together discussing terms and payment over some truly awful local paint stripper. Tenzo was pretty sure it was corroding the inside of his throat. Tsunade was on her fifth glass. He’d left the kids in the charge of Tsunade’s disconcertingly level headed apprentice Shizune, hopefully she’d keep Shin from murdering anyone, they’d gone off to get ramen. Surely even Sai couldn’t start a fight at a ramen stand.
“So let me get this straight. You’ve abandoned Konoha, kidnapped not one but two of Danzo’s creepy brainwashed child assassins, and now you want me to fix the broken one.” Tenzo was deeply impressed, she hadn’t even slurred her words.
“Y’don’t understand. It was terrible in Konoha. Danzo kept on going off on these… these monologues. With the wild staring eyes, and the “everyone’s out to get me”, and this furry white cat which just appeared one day. And we weren’t getting paid. I just couldn’t keep working like that.” Tenzo had a dim suspicion that he might be making a scene, but he’d had two glasses of the whatever it was they were drinking, and he was pretty sure that was far too many. Tsunade did at least look vaguely sympathetic.
“Yeah well, I left years ago. It’s good to see other people are finally coming to their senses. The point is why should I fix your creepy homicidal child assassin.”
“Because you’re a kind and caring person who graces the world by your mere presence.” Tenzo suggested hopefully. Tsunade just snorted.
“No I’m a mean, cranky, washed up old drunk. Try again.”
“I’ll pay a weeks worth of bar tabs for you.” Tenzo offered.
“A month.”
“Are you insane? I don’t have that kind of money. Two weeks, and a favour.” Tsunade considerd the offer.
“Make it two favours and you’ve got a deal.” They shook on it and then downed their drinks. Tenzo instantly regretted it, he wasn’t sure he even had a throat left after swallowing that.
…
Dear Haku.
It’s Shizune again. Tsunade shishou got a visitor today. No it wasn’t Kakashi san, it was some random other ex-Konoha nin. Apparently it’s become a real thing now, for Konoha nin. Kidnapping small children and going on the run. I’m not sure why, although I suspect I might be the first example. Not that anyone really remembers. After all I’m not nearly as attention grabbing as Naruto.
Anyway this missing nin had not one but two kids, and apparently one of them is sick, so he came to ask Tsunade shishou to fix him. This would be fine, except these kids are crazy. Like, I think they might be worse than Naruto crazy. The younger one (his name is Sai apparently), keeps insulting people. I’m not sure if he does it by accident or on purpose, but either way he has no sense of self preservation. He managed to start a fight at a ramen stand. In the space of about ten minutes he managed to mortally offend three local gangs, four members of the village council, two nearby food vendors, and a Buddhist monk. Not only that, but he managed to enrage them all to the point of attempted homicide.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Shin (that’s the older one) decided to take that as his cue to go on a homicidal rampage against anyone who so much as looked at his brother funny. I don’t even want to know where he was keeping all those knives, every time I turned my back he pulled out another one. It’s a miracle no-one was seriously hurt. First Naruto, now these two. I must have done something really bad inn a past life to deserve all this.
In the end I dragged the kids back to our hotel room, tied up Shin, and gagged Sai, before sitting down to write this letter. Hopefully that will keep them contained for a while. I really hope our respective adults will come back soon. Then again, given Shishou likes to discuss business over alcohol, they might just make the situation worse.
Anyway enough about me. How are you doing? Learn any interesting new techniques? Run into Naruto lately? I hope you are doing well.
Yours in deepest solidarity, Shizune.
…
Meanwhile back in Konoha the indistinct shape of a ninja sat in a darkened room and stroked a cat named Mr Tibbles. He didn’t know why he hadn’t gotten a cat before. Mr Tibbles was such a comfort in the face of the inevitable betrayal of all the humans in the village. Maybe he should get another one.