A/N~ A spoof of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Naruto style. Non-massacre AU, and yaoi. "Serious" crack, in terms of you can take this story seriously, but it will make you wonder what the hell I was on when I wrote this snicker a bit. And I tried my best to match Lewis Carroll's style of writing. This means grammar was tossed to the wind. And so was characterization. Fun~
Written for Bitter_Nakano~
Rather Curious and Out-Of-The-Way Adventures in Wonderland
Hmmm, Itachi thinks, now was it turn left and then right? Or right and then left? Or was it three-quarters left, and then two-thirds right?
Oh, he thinks, why would a client apply for a mission grant, if he himself is not sure of directions to his own little village! How foolish! And to make it an ANBU-level ordeal, for such a tiny squabble! It was only a stolen Jade mask, not a bit authentic Jade; ten yen a dozen, more or less.
Now, he thinks-quite exhausted from all of this thinking-it is not a very wise thing to navigate tree branches and ponder such trivial matters as the weather that had happened in the past! Focus, focus on the task at hand of finding my way back to the Gate of Leaves!
"Itachi," a familiar voice calls from a precarious perch on the very top of the tree canopy, "leaving without the team captain-who bothered to get proper directions back to the Leaf Village-is not a terribly wise thing to do."
Itachi's heels skid across branches until he is stationary and facing the captain. "Oh. Yes, Kakashi-san. I just thought it a good idea to leave earlier and pay some attention to the marked paths. Maybe then I would make it home in time for-"
"I bet that whatever it is can wait for you, all the same."
Now he feels foolish; Kakashi had promised to relay the needed directions, but that had been hours ago, and Shisui is very impatient when it comes to waiting for leaving on missions. It is now dark, and barely enough stars are awake to see four inches in front of one's face, let alone the path home.
"Young and eager to please…" Kakashi shakes his old head disapprovingly and steps down-free falls about fifty feet, Itachi notices-to the ground.
Slander! he rants, I am twenty-one years old and do as I please! "I will be more considerate next time, then. But you were running late."
The captain nods, and takes a seat against a fairly large tree stump among the weeded ground, intending to say nothing else to the 'little child.' Itachi's mouth makes a shape like grown-up mouths do when they are disappointed, but nevertheless he sits down on the opposite side of the trunk stump. "So we will sleep here, then?"
Kakashi's one visible eye rolls over to lazily look into the two awake and burning eyes that blend in with the surrounding darkness, and he jokingly replies, "Indeed, Little 'un. You seem to learn fast for your age."
The harmless joke is taken with more than a grain of salt, and Itachi turns away, also intending not to speak anymore. I wonder why, he thinks, why I even bother to attempt to make polite conversation with anyone anymore; Kakashi even thinks little of me!
Quite like a child-and quite proving Kakashi's theory-he crosses his arms over his chest and squeezes his dark eyes shut tight, with no intention of opening them until daybreak-and even then, not until he receives a proper apology.
Alas! that cause becomes a lost one when something not unlike a rabbit shakes the underbrush violent enough to produce an alarming sound. Itachi's eyes dart throughout the darkness, finding nothing more but darkness, when a little White Rabbit with pink eyes hurries past him.
Now, this was not very impressive, and Itachi thought nothing impressive of it until the little thing TAKES OUT FROM IT'S WAISTCOAT POCKET A WATCH and squeals to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late very soon! Oh, how the Duchess will be cross with me!"
And so, as any curious mind would, Itachi follows the furry little Rabbit, sneaking away from the dozed-off Kakashi on pale hands and knees, feeling around the messy ground for any rabbit holes.
The flash of white flying fur jumps past a few trees in the distance, and Itachi quickens his pace, now on two legs (like any respectable ninja chasing a rabbit). Odd, he thinks, that this little thing is so fast and dressed better than a high-class advocate! Why would a rabbit need to be somewhere on time, and why would it need a watch to check when it needed to be there?
He chases the White Rabbit for a few yards, when it dashes down a fairly large rabbit hole while mumbling about croquet, naturally. Not stopping to think (which is a habit picked up from his little brother and cousin, that just decided to show now), Itachi once again drops to his knees and begins to crawl through the well-crafted dirt tunnel, barely able to see or tell which direction he is going in. All he knows-thinks-is that straight is forward, and forward is where he can hear rabbit footsteps and little snippets of conversation with oneself about being quite late for a special event-
Falling! Falling down a massive downward tunnel!
Itachi panics and instinctively guards his face with his arms, squeezes his eyes shut, and tenses his body for impact…
…but he soon realizes that this 'falling' can be considered more of a 'drifting.'
Falling at an extremely slow pace, that is. He opens one eye and then the other, and lets his body relax, watching his surroundings. Not too far down, he can see lights-lights that turn into lanterns as he passes them by.
Wall lanterns! How absurd and stupid; there is nothing to be seen down here…, he thinks, except, of course, for these bookshelves and pantries…
As he descends deeper down the tunnel, drifting as slow as time ticks, Itachi finds that it is nothing unlike a disorganized house down here. He falls right into a rocking chair with a small table holding a thick book beside it. He passes a gasoline stove, a refrigerator, and a made-up bed among the stray toothbrushes and utensils. Even a running washroom sink floats by on the travel down.
The long travel down.
"This is terribly boring," Itachi murmurs to no one in particular (you see, he has also picked up the involuntary habit of talking to oneself in times of desperate boredom, regards once again to his cousin), "I wish I had someone to talk to. Maybe even that little grey cat that roams around the Uchiha Compound…
"But it would be a lost cause; cats cannot speak, and they seldom understand people. Almost as if they lived in two different worlds entirely.
"Perhaps I'll fall off the Earth and into a world where animals can understand people… What a foolish thing to think. I will more likely fall right through the center of Earth, and come out the other side where little children believe people walk upside-down. Sasuke sure did believe that when he was young…
"Sasuke… I wonder if he will believe me when I tell him why I was late getting back home. Why would anybody? I can't be sure if Shisui would even believe me. He will more likely be very angry with me and take the whole story as a mad excuse to poke fun at him…
"That'd be simply awful. He would have nothing to do with me after that, even getting to the point of breaking our relationship…
"I will simply not tell him, then. Instead, I will-ah!" At that very instant Itachi hits the ground, lands in a pile of hay to somewhat cushion his fall.
However, the hay does little, for he can already feel a headache starting to rise from the bottom of his skull to make a home in his eyes. He groans in pain and sits up, only to discover something very wrong about this new place already:
He is in a light blue dress! A white apron and stockings striped black-and-white to match! And-
And his hair is no longer tied back! A small bow where the tie should be containing black locks!
He can barely contain his blood as it makes a mad dash to give his face a reddish tint. How embarrassing; he silently prays that no one is around to see him dressed in such unusual attire. He searches the tiny and empty little room he had fallen into with his eyes wide, pleading that there were not any witnesses to this unfortunate event.
When the room is deemed empty of witnesses, Itachi heaves a sigh and clicks his buckled-up black flats together at the toes. Nothing less than feminine.
Having there be nothing else to do nor other possible exits back home, Itachi comes to the frightening conclusion that he must take the risk of someone seeing him to search for a way back to the Leaf Village. And, having there be nowhere else to begin searching, Itachi comes to the conclusion that he must start with the seemingly-endless hall of doors that leads from the room to nowhere fast.
The poor thing sighs again and gets up on both feet. He brushes himself off, because, he thinks, if I am to be walking around in this, I best look my best…
Itachi ventures into the rather door-ish hall, trying every doorknob down one wall and up the other. When he finds them all to be reluctant to turn, he trudges down the middle of the hall, a scowl on his face and arms crossed in frustration. Not only did a catastrophic costume change damage his will to explore this little place, but locked doors crushed his hopes all together! It is practically adding a cruel insult to a fatal injury! This place is playing dozens with him!
"Oh…" he whines to a hopeless cause, "and I certainly can't scale the rabbit hole again; it is far too long and crowded with things that may hurt if they fall on me… Aug!" Itachi's shin collides with a something that feels like kicking a brick, and he is quite shocked that he did not notice a little glass table with a golden key sitting on the edge of it-and right in the middle of the hall!
I will pay more attention, then, he thinks, throughout this entire unfortunate journey. How stupid of me.
So he goes up and down the hall again, but alas! either the locks are too large, or the key too small. But, he does pay more attention this lap round, and Itachi comes across a crimson curtain that he had overlooked the last time. So he draws the curtain-
and finds nothing.
Itachi heaves an extremely disappointed sigh, and his shoulders lose their perfect posture that has become less and less evident the more time ticks in this new and mocking place. He turns away, hanging his head lowest it'd go-
A note! There on the floor! Itachi cocks his head and stoops to pick the paper up, putting the golden key in one of the two little pockets on the front of his dress. It must have fallen, he muses, from the curtain when I rustled it.
He reads it aloud to no one in particular, trying to make sense of it:
"Drink the Bottle and devour the Cake,
then cry me a River to try and soothe worries,
and try to reach the Shore.
Lo! it will do nothing for you!
Take the KEY and try the LOCKS,
but oh, don't bother! None of them fit!
THERE IS NO LITTLE DOOR!
Just wish for Water and perform
a stationary Rain Dance!"
"Oh, what nonsense. Who has ever heard of a stationary dance? Oh, never mind." Itachi crumples the note and tosses it over his shoulder, walking down the hall and not thinking twice about it with a rather frustrated expression.
His mind mulls over ways to escape this personal hell, taking into account the Shore the note mentioned, when he loses his footing on something slippery and falls backward. And no sooner than that does he realize that the hall is flooded with four inches of water, and everything seems to be growing around him while the water level quickly rises. His eyes grow surprised and Itachi comes to the conclusion that it is more likely that he is the one changing sizes, rather than the whole room.
He is shrinking! Shutting up like a telescope! Going out like a candle!
Itachi quickly climbs to his feet, waist-deep in mysterious water and still growing backwards fast. "For God's sake, I was short before!" he shouts, "Now I will think nothing of being unable to reach a top shelf at home!"
The water rises to his neck, then chin, and in no time at all Itachi finds himself two feet (at least in his scaled-down measurements) off the ground and being swept away by the current. Having close to no swimming strength-for the Nakano River back home was much less rigorous than this-the poor little thing is at the mercy of the sloshing current, until the water fills the whole hall and slams him into the far wall.
His headache becomes more pronounced from the hit, glazing his mind over and sucking his energy away. Itachi gives up his struggle in favor of sinking, too tired to care about his fate. Much too tired. He lets his heavy eyelids close, and soon falls out of consciousness.
… … …