Title: Around Konoha in Three Stories.
Summary: Follow the stories of Konohagakure- Stories both old and new; tales torrid and terrible; tales of inspiring mischief and aspiring shinobi. Naruto AU.
Ratings: K+
Warnings: Possible OOC among characters. Introduction of an OC.
Background: The AU is built on the premise that Itachi is made Hokage instead of being ordered to slaughter his clan.
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline
A Pact
It was one of the last few days in the academy for her. The sun was shining on the bench where she sat. There had been recommendations for a post-Academy psychiatric evaluation which were compulsory for them.
She sighs as she lies down on the bench, remembering the meeting.
She was asked to meet the counselor at a quarter to one and so she was there on the dot, as per the diktat of punctuality that was drilled into them by the academy.
She entered into the warmly colored, recently painted room of the counselor. A middle aged, dusky brunette, who greeted her with brisk tones that belied her warmth.
The file that was being perused was most definitely hers, judging by the thinness of the file and the way it was matter of factly cast aside at her entrance.
"Tenten, I presume," she spoke, a softly accented voice.
She nodded her assent and sat on the chair in the corner with her back to the wall. Coolly assessing eyes noted her every minute action.
So Tenten did what she did best and put on her most charming smile. The woman seemed unmoved despite the smile she returned.
"So Tenten, tell me, what do you intend to do once you graduate?" she asked softly.
The answer was just a tip of the tongue away and slipped past easily.
"I intend to become a legendary kunoichi." She spoke with sincerity and a quiet conviction.
The woman's fingers steepled as she looked speculatively at the girl before her. She hid her smile as she thought of the interesting ways this child could grow. Her file indicated that she was little more than an average kunoichi, the only notable exception being her skill with blades and a peculiar affinity for flames.
Most people would note her aspirations and silently mock her for it. Worst of all, they would do it with a seemingly benevolent pat and an exaggerated encouragement whilst seething about the gutter flower that yearned to reach the sun.
But she, Sumiko Ibiki, was not most people.
She could see, if no one else could, the flames of ambition that burned within the girl. This was not a child who spoke her goals lightly. She could read it in the sheer force of desire concealed behind her affected cheer. The strength of will concealed behind the humility. This child, was going to make something of herself. And as an Ibiki, with their intimate understanding of human kind, it was close to an accurate psychic foretelling as it would get.
She watched the child in silence. Despite the scrutiny, the child did not squirm as most children would but watched as intently as Sumiko herself. The girl was attempting to gauge her thoughts as Sumiko assessed her. She would have laughed if it weren't for the unprofessionalism of it all.
After a suitable interval she spoke, softer than before but her clear voice carried the full import of her trailing sentence, "Off the record…"
There was a slight stiffening of limbs from the child, but after that there was stillness and Sumiko found herself to be the receptacle of an intensely scrutinizing gaze from cool brown eyes.
For some unfathomable reason, this child- this girl, made her want to incite her trust in Sumiko.
And so, for the first time in a long, long time, Sumiko dropped the careful neutrality and allowed her emotions to surface in her eyes.
Much to her relief, the girl's gaze did not linger and she echoed cautiously "Off the record.."
Sumiko bit back her desire to smile and continued "Frankly, you have the potential to live upto your word. It will take a lot of training but I'm certain you can manage it."
As a testament to her intelligence, the girl heard the unspoken 'but' in Sumiko's sentence and prompted "but?"
"You have no clan backing you. If you want to succeed, you need a protector, a strong one. One who would be able and willing to back up your claims and if necessary, provide you with the requisite platform for your debut into the upper echelons of Konoha."
The girl was politically savvy enough to not bristle at the implication of her being too weak to make it on her own. She understood that unless you were from one of the founding clans or even some of the less traditional clans, you had no standing in the shinobi cadre.
She understood the unspoken implication that without a name to back you up, you had to work many times harder than the average shinobi to gain the same acknowledgement accorded to even the weakest scion of a Founding clan.
Sumiko wondered for the first time in a series of times to come, where the political savviness came from.
She knew the girl was an immigrant but she had no more information. That was of no consequence, she did have enough clearance as an Ibiki, even a soft core one like a counselor, to be allowed into the Clan Catacombs.
She noted that into her mental scroll and then refocused her attention on the girl before her.
The girl sported a rather peculiar look then, veiled by long lashes and deliberate downward sweeps of her lids. Her voice, when she poke, was even and a little lilting.
"What, madam, prompted this unexpected show of generosity?" she queried.
Sumiko could not fight off the smile then, and so she caved and smiled at the girl.
"A very peculiar hobby of mine," she spoke, savoring the slight shiver that coursed down the girl's spine.
"And what hobby would that be madam?" she enquired again, coolly polite.
"A hobby that involves collecting favors," she replied.
The girl understood. "What kind of favor?" she cautiously ventured, impassively.
"One of my choosing, and at my convenience." She replied.
"It shall be done," spoke the girl, the words taking on a sing song quality of an Oath of yore.
Thus, having come to an understanding, they –by mutual nonverbal consent- parted ways.
Tenten, with the security that the Ibikis' would back her if- or rather when- she became worthy of acknowledgement.
Sumiko, with one more pawn under thumb. She had, as always, been the best at securing excellent bargains.
Tenten was walking away from the bench, hoping to shake off the feeling that she had just made a bargain with the devil himself (or in this case herself), when a blond streak of orange careened past. She stepped neatly to the side and then once more for the larger green blurs to pass through. She smiled at the thought of learning of the boy's newest prank. It wasn't fashionable to be a Naruto fan but she did enjoy hearing of the numerous scrapes the boy got himself into.
As she passed the Yamanaka Ikebana shop, a light nagging from the region of her stomach reminded her that she hadn't had lunch yet and so she headed home.
The Flower Girl
At the Yamanaka Ikebana Shop, a girl of twelve stands beside her father as he arranges flowers. She observes with bright, curious eyes. They miss nothing in their inquisitive perusal. The slight shake in a woman's hands as she takes her package, the absolutely graceless snort that is her reaction to an eavesdropped upon conversation, her coquettish laughter as she attempt to cover up her faux pas.
Her lips curl in distaste as she masquerades it as a smile. Her laughter is as breezy as her smile as she calls out for her to visit again.
She, Yamanaka Ino, surveys the people once again- some are old, old patrons who have been loyally purchasing from the Yamanaka Ikebana Shop for generations. Some, Ino remembers from her six year old self. She had been faithfully practicing her people reading skills from her perch on the window sill, as some of these people would coo over how adorable she was despite the baby lisp that lingered over her some of her words. Some would pinch her cheeks and predict that she was going to be an unrepentant beauty in her older years and then proceed to quietly slip her some chocolate when her father wasn't looking. Ino put up with them because she thought the chocolate was the due of the pain she had experienced and didn't protest. Instead, she smiled oh-so-angelically at them all, sending them into raptures.
Ino wasn't exactly an exalted genius like some of her peers but her brilliance lay at subtle manipulation. Something she had perfected to an art form in the interim years.
It was this girl, this Ino, who had decided to crack her rose tinted glasses against the hokage mountain. She cast aside all notions of fairytales and happily ever afters. She decided she was going to become a kunoichi, through and through. And so, it is through this incident that Ino begins to truly delve into the recesses of her clan's repository of jutsu's and begins to master them all. This is also when Ino decides that her mate is going to be one of the strongest in Konoha. For that, beauty and a stellar bloodline are never going to be enough, she realizes. If she is to claim the strongest, she is also going to have to be the strongest in her generation. It is with this goal in mind that she asks her father to teach her the ways of politics. She, like a sponge, absorbed everything- art, history, geography, dates, numbers, wars, casualties, battle tactics.
The Ino who came before Sakura was a very oblivious creature, she muses in the unexpected pleasure of a quiet shop.
The thought is scornful and so filled with left over pique of her childhood friendship. She had thought it all worth it then, taking another girl under her wing, she thought she could share her burdens, become such dear friends that people would think twice about rejecting the girl. She wanted to share.
But had learned her lesson in the end, when Sakura had thrown her offer of friendship in her face over a boy, it had stung but she learned to live with it.
The insult that she could not stomach was the fact that Sakura had taken the knowledge she had been gifted with to flaunt as an asset over Ino.
Ino was a kunoichi, and so she learned to watch. And to wait for the right time.
She was interrupted from her rage by the timely chime of the door bell. She places her marigolds back on the table.
Her father enters the shop and Ino instantly morphs from a grieving, resentful friend to the perpetually sunny daughter.
"hey dad, what did the man say?" she queried, drawing up a cheery smile.
A few years melted from his face as he crinkled a smile at his only daughter.
"He loved it," he spoke, "He's talking about putting you in charge of the wedding's flower arrangement."
Ino feigned a delighted smile and they chatted amicably about the wedding details and discounts. Slowly, the topic shifts to that of the new Hokage.
Her father speaks of Uchiha Itachi, with obvious disdain. She can't gather its source. It could have been for his youth or for the way his friend Shikaku, had been passed over. Ino walks to the windowsill, attempting to squint past the slant of a mid afternoon sun to gaze at the Hokage tower. The angle causes her to note its form as a mere hulking shadow in the distance.
An epiphany strikes her. She had decided that the man she married would be one of the strongest in the village. The Hokage was, without a doubt and by law, the strongest man in the village. So it naturally followed that Ino was going to set her sights on the man named Hokage- Uchiha Itachi.
She knew it wasn't going to be easy. She knew half the village- civilian and shinobi alike had their sights set on him. But if, by engineered fate, she was able to catch his eye, she needed to be able to take him- hook, line and sinker.
For that, she needed to become stronger, to become well known and respected. Decision made, Ino pulled off her apron and tossed it on the hook behind the back entrance. Calling out that she was going to train, she marched her way out and dragged her lazy team mates into helping her become exactly who she wanted to become.
The Shrimp.
"I'm going to be the next Hokage! Believe it!" came the voice of the mini typhoon that was being led away, as clichéd as it may sound, kicking and screaming by the ANBU guards stationed near the rooftops of the Hokage Tower.
Itachi simply walked to the window, surveying the damage.
Almost all the glasses were cracked. Those that weren't had an opaque coating of egg albumin. The handiwork of one Uzumaki Naruto. When the attack was launched, the boy had begun the attack by somehow managing to shatter all the windowpanes of the room. Those that had withstood the attack were slaughtered by the influx of eggs which, in the rain, turned opaque.
Itachi fought back the desire to sigh. While Itachi was the sort of shinobi who enjoyed a challenge, he didn't think it would be all that enjoyable to spend a night in a window-paneless room. Especially if the said room was exposing paperwork to the chilly, uncaring Konoha monsoon.
As charming as it was to run behind stray paperwork, the best case scenario for tonight was to fold and go home.
As soon as he secured the paper work. The southern cabinet yielded a summoning scroll. He quickly and efficiently dispatched them into neat piles and stored them away.
For some reason, the slightly triumphant quirk to the boy's smile had him bothered. He dismissed the thought as absurd. The boy's self proclaimed "coup" was dealt with by asking him to take up the mantle for repairs.
A slight movement registered in his mind as icy fingers attacked his temples. He reached for his kunai before realizing that the only person who could have snuck up on him was Shisui.
He relaxed as the icy fingers continued their ministration on his slightly throbbing temples. The closeness did not bother him as much as it used to and he doesn't protest as the fingers continue their slow relaxing touch on his muscles.
The ache subsided and Itachi relished the relief.
He turned around and found himself cloistered by his unmoving cousin. He quirked a brow in askance.
"Let's go drinking," Shisui declares and before Itachi could protest grabs him by arm and stalks down the tower, throwing over his shoulder "consider it payback for my Headache Curing Massages of Undiluted Awesomeness,"
If he were the type, he would have rolled his eyes.
But he follows Shisui unquestioned because of the confidence that only years-no decades- of trust could produce.
The night is spent in a tasteful bar that caters distinctly to the so called "Upper Echelons" of Konoha.
Shisui proceeds to get roaring drunk, attempts to regale him with supposedly humorous and definitely colorful tales from his latest mission. Itachi manages to insert a dry comment or two before he finds himself with a lapful of his sleeping cousin.
He goes to pay the tab and then heads home with his cousin draped around him.
There is a subtle shift in the scent of the manor. It is too faint or perhaps, he is too tired to identify it. He drops Shisui off into the unused guest room and places a bucket beside his bed.
There is a sliver of moonlight peeking in. Itachi draws the curtains over the window and as he does, fails to notice the quicksilver flash of dulled blond that streaks past, behind bushes.
The odor that permeates the rooms is considerably stronger. It is, in fact, the first thing Itachi notices as well as the reason he wakes up.
Shrimp.
Itachi wracks his brain, attempting to remember the last time he had shrimp in the house. Nothing surfaces. Maybe Shisui had brought some over.
He dresses and bathes and when he ambles over to the dining table, there is no shrimp.
Itachi's eyes flickered over the food- steamed rice, a bowl of miso soup and some tamagoyaki. There was no shrimp.
Interest alighted by the mystery, he searched the house, beginning with the fridge. There was no shrimp.
He followed the trail of the smell. To his dismay, he found that the smell permeated from every room.
The soft chimes of the Konoha Watchtower* announced that he should probably be in his office now, preparing to greet the teams now.
He forcibly sets his curiosity aside and went about his daily business. The shrimp remained in the back of his mind like a particularly stubborn tick.
For the first time in months, he returned home in a rush. The scent had grown rancid now and smelled like a litterbox after a week of neglect.
He thoroughly and methodically stripped the house and then reset it.
Still no shrimp.
Itachi attempted to mentally review the matter when he remembered noticing the smell last night. He also vaguely remembered crunch of leaves that he had dismissed as that of a small animal's. A sudden recollection of Naruto's smile came to mind.
He supposes that he has found the perpetuator and stalks out on shadow feet to track down the noisy blond. Surely enough, he's at Ichiraku.
Naruto smirks as Itachi comes to him.
Naruto pats the stool beside him. Itachi's eyes narrow but he feels like laughing. He, Itachi Uchiha, who was unbowed by the machinations of everyone from the Council Elders to the matchmaking mamas of Konoha's pioneer clans, was being yanked around by a mere chit of a boy.
Naruto turns to Teuchi and orders one more bowl with great gusto. For him. Itachi settles into the stool.
They finish their meal in silence. Or in as much silence as slurping and chugging ramen allows.
Naruto turns to him with a foxy grin. "Figured it out yet?" he taunts, and his grin grows wider at Itachi's silence.
"This is payback," he announces proudly, aware of the challenge in Itachi's eyes.
He steps off the stool and is pinned by the weight of Itachi's gaze.
Naruto, with a complete lack of self preservation instincts, grins his foxy grin and says "It's inside the curtain rods." And walks away.
Itachi while had searched the top planks of his curtain holder, he hadn't searched the rods themselves. He smiled at the simple elegance of his plot.
He wasn't so bad. The more creative aspects of his imagination would definitely serve him well. He had the stamina, the chakra, the breeding, to be an exemplary ninja. Perhaps he might actually make it as Hokage.
Itachi is in the middle of his rosy thoughts as his name is called.
Itachi blinks out of his reverie, to find a grinning Teuchi and a rather long bill.
Ende.
And hence the title.. It refers both to Naruto and the shrimp… ;P
Konoha Watchtower is the quaint pillar which has enormous grandfather clock mounted on it which has been accurately showing the time since its construction…
I had this lying around in my drive for close to a year now. I just dusted a few things up and just decided to post this.
If there are any betas who are kind enough to take mercy on my poor, grammatically incorrect works. Please feel free to contact me!
Never underestimate the power of suggestions, do review.
D.A.