Kisame was a buffoon.
The dangerous, black-haired man was sitting in a noisy teahouse in a small town through which he and his partner were passing. While typically he would be clad in a black cloak with red clouds floating on its surface, he wore a black suit with a matching black tie. Beneath the jacket, he wore a vest with crimson and midnight patterns. His fish-faced comrade wore a simpler suit.
Uchiha Itachi found it odd that people were not blatantly staring at the blue-skinned ninja. Although, according to Kisame, he had been to this particular teahouse and had firmly insisted that the two of them have a night of fun and relaxation before they went to Akatsuki headquarters for reconnaissance. The idiot must have paid well in this establishment for the owners to even allow him access. Where Kisame had found the suits, he also had no clue. Most likely he found two innocent men and convinced them—most likely in a not so friendly manner—to surrender their garments. Considering there was no blood on either set of clothes, he decided he had not threatened them with Samehada. Otherwise, there would have been no clothing left to wear. It did not matter either way to him, but he already found himself annoyed and mildly bored, while Kisame had a young geisha sitting next to him, tittering into her butterfly sleeve about something stupid he probably said.
Rolling his eyes (which were onyx colored for fear of scaring the civilians), he took in the scenery for about the seventh time. Geisha swarmed this teahouse, entertaining wealthy men of status and power. Many of the white-faced women sat on their customer's lap, each girl trying to earn her meals for the week. A laugh into her sleeve. A sly glance from beneath, heavy black eyelashes. An accidental brush of the lips on an ear as a seductive secret was purred. That's all it took with these men. A geisha had yet to approach him, and he knew it was because of the deathly aura surrounding him. It kept them from bothering him, for none of them struck him as worthy of his time. There was nothing special about any of these little, porcelain dolls.
Itachi nearly groaned aloud when he saw a geisha spot him and smile to herself. She was a little thing to be sure, but her face was plain. Nothing special at all. And she made her way directly toward him, plopping down in the vacant spot next to him with all the grace of an elephant.
'Aren't geisha supposed to be artists?' he thought dryly to himself.
"Well, hello," she said, trying to make her voice purr as she batted her eyelashes. "May I pour you some more sake, sir?"
He merely glanced her way without removing his chin from his hand. Although his facial expression had not changed, the girl looked into his cold, hard glare, and with a pierce of fear, realized that she was frozen and wondering how much longer she would live. Gasping for air, she suddenly stood and hurriedly fled his presence, causing her to nearly trip over her kimono.
"Come on, Itachi," Kisame piped in, earning a glare from the Uchiha who was disgusted when he saw the geisha previously in a seat at his side, now vacating the spot on his lap. "Have a little fun!"
"Your idea of amusement is completely opposing of mine, Kisame," he remarked with irritation evident in his voice.
"I hear there is going to be a great performance on this very stage," Kisame retorted pointing past the half-drunk geisha on his lap to a fairly large stage at the front of the room. "I also hear the geisha is so beautiful that not even you could resist her."
"Hn," Itachi replied, doubt evident in his voice. Catching the eye of the Sharingan user was not an easy task. While women did tend to throw themselves at his feet, the Uchiha would merely step over top of them as though they did not exist. Wasting his time on average women was not his ideal of amusement.
Had it not been for Kisame unintentionally spiking his interest, Itachi would have left the smoke filled room already. Half of its occupants were drunk, and he periodically spotted couples leaving the room to partake in more private activities. The black-haired man groaned and vowed to never allow Kisame to drag him into one of these cursed places ever again.
His thoughts were arrested by the dimming of the lights in the room, while the lights around the stage suddenly glowed a soft crimson color, casting an eerie light on the surface of the curtains. Sitting up straight, Itachi focused his gaze firmly on the stage with the sound of drums beginning to pound, ceasing the boisterous noise in the teahouse. He also noticed that all the men had forgotten the women they were accompanied by to stare intently at the stage. Apparently, this geisha was renowned.
The curtains opened, revealing a figure shielding her face from the view of the audience with two black fans. Itachi noticed how the red of her kimono matched the color of his Sharingan. The beautiful garment was made of a shimmering, crimson silk with long butterfly sleeves and a train pooling around her feet. It had a black tree on the back of it, visible as she turned and spread her arms out on either side of her, having yet to reveal her face. The black tree had golden and black leaves blowing off of it at the will of a silver wind. A gold obi accentuated the geisha's thin waist. Her hair was pulled up into a mass of intricate knots on the back of her head, a white flower stuck into the mass. When she turned around to face the audience once more with the fans still blocking her face, it was evident that a black bang swept across her forehead and two pieces of black hair hung down to her chest framing her unseen face.
What caught his attention was the way she absolutely shimmered in the light pouring onto the stage. The way her long, thin fingers gracefully grasped the ends of each black fan showed her dexterity in her craft. Pounding drums seemed to start matching his heartbeat as his eyes focused and his sitting position became straight and alert, waiting to see the geisha's face. Shamisen were being plucked as well. She spun in three quick circles, never revealing her face. Then turning her back to the audience once again she side stepped in rhythm to the music, her shaking hands causing the metallic fans to sparkle in the red light. Taking one fan on her finger, she began twirling it around the long digit with the other fan shielding her face as she spun in a slow graceful circle to face the audience once more. With the tempo speeding up, she bowed her head to her chest so that only the top of her head was visible with her arms once again spread to her sides as she bent her knees and spun in a graceful circle, the butterfly sleeves whipping around her creating a whirlwind of fabric. Then as the tempo slowed gradually her spinning stopped with both fans still shielding her face. She extended one fan to her side, while the other lowered to reveal her eyes for the first time. Itachi released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding when he saw the shocking blue pools beneath heavy black eyelashes. The fan that she held to her side rose along with her leg which extended until it was parallel to the ground. Lifting her arm further, her leg followed until it was nearly perpendicular to the floor.
Itachi froze and pondered her flexibility. For a geisha to be so flexible was utterly beyond belief. The way her wrists flicked when she was causing her fans to refract the light; it reminded him of the flicking of a wrist when throwing a kunai. Her feet barely made a sound as she treaded the stage floor. Perhaps he was overanalyzing it, but if he had not known any better, he might suspect her to be more than a geisha. A kunoichi. It would not be the first time a kunoichi had posed as a geisha to kill some high level business man.
He left his thoughts to focus on the moving work of art as she shuffled quickly to the front of the stage, both fans still hiding her face. Spinning fast, faster, faster, her arms gradually extended and as she slowed to a stop with closed eyes and fans at her side, she finally revealed her face to the audience and opened her eyes as the music ended.
The room erupted in applause and boisterous shouting at the dazzling display. Itachi merely watched her, an impassive glaze in his eyes, shielding his true interest.
Kisame had actually been right. He amusedly thought it had to have been a first. She was not beautiful though; she was ethereal. Itachi stared into a white-painted face, with a red, rosebud mouth which he could at the moment only describe as succulent. A slender, pert nose separated those two blue gems which glanced over the audience with amusement flickering in them. Something in him sparked to life when he saw a small tug of the corners of her lips forming a delicate smile. She stashed her fans in her butterfly sleeves and bowed, bending her spine with more grace than it seemed humanly possible.
She absolutely glowed with that slight smile playing at her lips.