IV. (let's pretend i can ruin characterization if i want as it's CRACK. cheap excuse, i know.)

"Did you know how close she was to taking off my head? That veil could moonlight as a poleaxe! That glitter? Crushed glass I'm telling you!"

This can't be happening. Hinata thought, unsuitably more comfortable while gagged and tied up than while wearing a dress that was paid for in blood of the innocent. Minutes after Shisui left to make sure the preparations were perfect, or at least still in existence, someone had broken through the parameter, cleverly making the most of the fact that the sentinels, being used to him, always trained activated Byakugan's into Shisui's careening blaze through the compound. Whether it was his magnetism or his amazing tendency to act like the Hachibi in a china shop no one except the branch members know.

"This is really low, even for us, on her wedding day?"

"We would've gotten to Konoha sooner if you hadn't insisted on watching the three-night Kabuki play serial!"

"I heard Uchiha Shisui has a lot staked on this wedding. We're dead."

"Dude, this is Uchiha Itachi's fiancée, you know – we were dead three days ago."

The hardest parts of retrieval missions were, without exception, the soul-sucking well-wishers and wannabes. There was an explosion of rage, biblical in proportion, in all those who loved Hinata once the truth slipped, that is once Shisui fainted from the combination of the genjutsu's chakra drain, the golden headdress, the killer bodice and the suspicious-smelling candles in the couple's image.

Itachi claimed the sole right to go after his missing bride after Shisui, still doozy and grasping at the dregs of his chakra, doryoku-ed everyone into voting favorably and left the task of restraining Neji and Naruto to the bride and groom's little siblings. Of course, he, being umbilically attached to Itachi, got to go as well.

Slipping off the ceremonial robes which were such hindrances no wonder there was a correlation between falling in love and dying, they scaled the village walls and scanned the horizon.

Behind them, people tried not to get blinded by the brilliance of the Uchiha prodigies, more specifically, by the sunlight reflecting off their new prototype silver mission outfits in indestructible spandex with handy-dandy-really-DANDY rainbow glare, made to effortlessly blind and torture enemy-nin and whose proposal caused a riot that ended with mountain-Tsunade's nose going into orbit.

(Danzo meant what he said about going all out to protect Konoha.)

Shisui took the lead, flickering over trees in a manner that will someday inspire the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, never stopping until he tripped over the fungal outgrowth above where Kakashi and now, everyone else, periodically took a leak for luck before missions. It was the Yondaime's greatest legacy.

(Kakashi's greatest secret regret, for he had many, was that in accordance to rules of punishment, he didn't let Obito go. But anyway.)

High conscious of his terrible fate, Shisui scrambled for something to hold on to. Itachi's ponytail, though as tempting Hatake Kakashi's face mask and Morino Ibiki's fabled Icha-Icha shrine that broke more minds than his interrogation equipment, had been conditioned and hot-oiled to beyond perfection for his wedding and simply too slippery.

Time froze the way it always does at the most critical moment.

"Itachi, if I die, the Mangekyou…kill our caterers. Pay my alcohol tab. Name three children after me and teach them the Shunshin. Send Sasuke to a shrink immediately. Tell Uncle Madara that Tsunade didn't reject him simply because he was an Uchiha, but because she was fourteen and he was a sick creeper."

Itachi, who always makes very good use of time freezes and watching already holding his wedding planner up, blinked at that.

"I don't speak Latin." A tiny slab of slate muttered.

"I'm not your mother." Another growled.

"P-please don't fight."

Shisui closed his eyes. Clearly, he was going insane, but damn he knew that voice and the Hokage did say to leave no stones unturned.

It really was some cockamamie hideout. And silver spandex did work.

Thus was the danger in threatening Hyuuga Hinata, who was considered S-class by association by more than a few villages.

"Itachi! Shisuiiii!" Hinata, liberated and only a bit blinded by all the rainbows going around, hugged her rescuer.

Shisui hugged back. Itachi stared. A cricket chirped.

(And someone groaned, alive because Hinata is like those old-school lords who forgive and forget and pays the defense fees of their kidnappers. The mind boggles.)

"Hinata, you're kind of hugging the wrong man, but carry on as you please."

Hinata blushed – something that made Shisui's wedding planning heart titter like a schoolgirl on acid – and immediately let him go.

"How did you find us?"

"Hinata, you heart is so big I didn't need a trail, merely followed its gravity."

Used to Shisui's bouts of smoothness, probably the only girl in Konoha who could say so, Hinata didn't break stride and hugged Itachi.

"Thank you, I'm sorry to have caused so much trouble."

"On the contrary, this was very enlightening." Itachi said gently, glancing quickly at Shisui, the corners of his mouth creased in amusement, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

[Theme: Rescue Missions]