Icha Icha Tactics

Disclaimer: This is a purely fan-made piece that is using the world and characters from Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto and is made entirely for enjoyment. No financial gain has been made in the making of this piece

Summery: In an act of desperation, Ibiki listens to Kakashi

Author's Note: Written for Athame. Possible out-of-characterness, crack, character mockery, and more crack on a stick.

Constructive Criticism is always welcomed

Published: 20 March 2008

Rating: T

Ibiki realised—about five sentences in—that he should have known better than to listen to Kakashi.

This is what he got for having no social life. If he had gotten out more often, he never would have read every single book, scroll, paper, and report on torture and interrogation that had come through Konoha (and a goodly number that hadn't), and thus had nothing to read or to simulate his brain for the last two months.

It had gotten to the point that Ibiki had gotten a cat two weeks ago, even though he already had a plant and all he knew about cats were that they were fuzzy—cats were the fuzzy pet, correct? He was confident that he would be able to figure things out—and he was fairly sure that the fuzzy thing he had was a cat. It was bossy, stared at him a lot, and was distinctly unimpressed with Ibiki's scars. Since it had a few old wounds itself, it seemed to believe that it was the baddest creature in the apartment and thus was master of the house.

Ibiki let it think that.

It had nothing to do with the staring contests that he had lost to it, either.

But—despite everything—the cat had not provided Ibiki with what he needed. It was cute if you liked things like that, it was fluffy, and it was sort of nice when it cuddled up and growled in that friendly way cats did, but it did not provide the mental stimulation that Ibiki craved (the hairball question had been answered quickly and did not need to be re-examined, in his humble opinion).

So when Kakashi had mentioned something about the fascinating new tactics that Jiraiya had employed in his newest book, Ibiki had latched on like a starved lamprey. Kakashi had even been kind enough to loan Ibiki one of his numerous copies of the book.

Which is why he had tried to read the orange books and he quickly discovered the tactics Kakashi had referred to—if you could call them tactics—were not, in any way, shape, or form, interrogation tactics.

He was bored and desperate enough that he read the whole thing. He then wondered how Kakashi—who read these types of books whenever he could and as often as he could—managed to keep his genius status because Ibiki was convinced that he had lost intelligence points from reading that trash.

When Kakashi had slunk into his office the next day and asked how Ibiki had liked the book, Ibiki told him that he thought the book was poorly written, poorly conceived, and that Gai could write better sex conversations than Jiraiya did. Jiraiya was also going to burn in pun hell for all the rotten jokes and off-coloured comments he made.

Kakashi looked positively scandalised at the criticism and informed Ibiki that he clearly was not reading the book properly.

Ibiki icily asked how one could read such trivial trash 'correctly' and thus make it tolerable.

Kakashi's smile was cheerful and he flipped open the book, announcing that it all had to do with the mind-set and mental visualisation. To illustrate his point, he read a particularly awful corny line—in a husky, dark voice that hinted at erotic promises.

If Ibiki didn't know any better, he would have said that Kakashi was using his bedroom voice.

It was also a testament to how long it had been since Ibiki had any sort of social contact because—horrid as the line had been—it was almost sexy when Kakashi had read it like that.

It might have been just as long for Kakashi because he leered at Ibiki and asked him if more demonstrations were necessary.

Ibiki paused for a moment, then decided that it was time that he branched out. One never knew when a different tactic would be needed and if he played his cards right, Kakashi could fill his dull evenings with numerous lessons.

Perhaps Kakashi was on to something, after all.

x Fin x